Prevalence of non-psychiatric comorbidities in pre-symptomatic and symptomatic Huntington's disease gene carriers in Poland
File(s)fmed-07-00079.pdf (642.45 KB)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Huntington's disease (HD) is monogenic neurodegenerative disorder caused by CAG expansions within the Huntingtin gene (Htt); it has a prevalence of 1 in 10,000 worldwide and is invariably fatal. Typically, healthy individuals have fewer than 35 CAG repeats, while the CAG expansions range from 36 to ~200 in HD patients. The hallmark of HD is neurodegeneration, especially in the striatal nuclei, basal ganglia and cerebral cortex, leading to neurological symptoms that involve motor, cognitive, and psychiatric events. However, HD is a complex disorder that may also affect peripheral organs, so it is possible that HD patients could be affected by comorbidities. Hence, we investigated the prevalence of comorbid conditions in HD patients (pre-symptomatic and symptomatic groups) and compared the frequency of those conditions to a control group. Our groups represent 65% of HD gene carriers registered in Poland. We identified 8 clusters of comorbid conditions in both HD groups, namely: musculoskeletal, allergies, cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, thyroid, psychiatric, and ophthalmologic. We found that HD patients have a significantly higher percentage of co-existing conditions in comparison to the control group. Among the 8 clusters of diseases, musculoskeletal, psychiatric, and cardiovascular events were significantly more frequent in both pre- and symptomatic HD patients, while neurological and gastrointestinal clusters showed significantly higher occurrence in the HD symptomatic group. A greater recognition of comorbidity in HD might help to better understand health outcomes and improve clinical management.
Date Issued
2020-03-11
Date Acceptance
2020-02-25
Citation
Frontiers in Medicine, 2020, 7
ISSN
2296-858X
Publisher
Frontiers Media
Journal / Book Title
Frontiers in Medicine
Volume
7
Copyright Statement
© 2020 Zielonka, Witkowski, Puch, Lesniczak, Mazur-Michalek, Isalan and Mielcarek. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Sponsor
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust- BRC Funding
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust- BRC Funding
Grant Number
RDF01
RDF01
Subjects
comorbidities
huntington's disease
multimorbidity
peripheral pathology
pre-symptomatic stage
symptomatic stage
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 79