Pub Date : 2025-12-30DOI: 10.1016/j.nmd.2025.106331
David Gómez-Andrés , Michelle A Farrar , Mireia Alvarez-Molinero , Rocío Garcia-Uzquiano , Chiara Brusa , Giovanni Baranello , Susana Quijano-Roy , 285th ENMC Workshop participants
Recent advances in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) early diagnosis and treatment have significantly improved survival and motor outcomes, particularly for those with severe phenotypes. However, clinicians have observed unexpected cognitive, social, communication, and behavioural differences in a proportion of children. The 285th ENMC workshop convened 28 experts from 13 countries to address these neurodevelopmental concerns. Key outcomes included confirming the presence of challenges in neurodevelopment in a substantial proportion of treated SMA type 1 children, identifying higher-risk subgroups, and emphasizing the need for early identification, timely referrals, and family support. Participants agreed on a core screening strategy and highlighted the importance of international collaboration to develop specific diagnostic and intervention guidelines. Future steps involve launching an online survey to assess the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders and study their characteristics and trajectories, developing care guidelines, and promoting research working groups to further understand brain development in SMA and improve patient care.
{"title":"285th ENMC international workshop: SMN-associated neurodevelopmental disorder: type 1 spinal muscular atrophy and the brain, 31st January - 2nd February 2025, Hoofddorp, The Netherlands","authors":"David Gómez-Andrés , Michelle A Farrar , Mireia Alvarez-Molinero , Rocío Garcia-Uzquiano , Chiara Brusa , Giovanni Baranello , Susana Quijano-Roy , 285th ENMC Workshop participants","doi":"10.1016/j.nmd.2025.106331","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nmd.2025.106331","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent advances in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) early diagnosis and treatment have significantly improved survival and motor outcomes, particularly for those with severe phenotypes. However, clinicians have observed unexpected cognitive, social, communication, and behavioural differences in a proportion of children. The 285th ENMC workshop convened 28 experts from 13 countries to address these neurodevelopmental concerns. Key outcomes included confirming the presence of challenges in neurodevelopment in a substantial proportion of treated SMA type 1 children, identifying higher-risk subgroups, and emphasizing the need for early identification, timely referrals, and family support. Participants agreed on a core screening strategy and highlighted the importance of international collaboration to develop specific diagnostic and intervention guidelines. Future steps involve launching an online survey to assess the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders and study their characteristics and trajectories, developing care guidelines, and promoting research working groups to further understand brain development in SMA and improve patient care.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19135,"journal":{"name":"Neuromuscular Disorders","volume":"60 ","pages":"Article 106331"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146024494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-30DOI: 10.1016/j.nmd.2025.106332
Carla J. Jonker , Kelly Plueschke , Kieran C. Breen , Mencía de Lemus Belmonte , Patrice Verpillat , Alexandra Pacurariu
Spinal muscular atrophy is a rare recessive progressive neurodegenerative disorder. To better understand the progression of spinal muscular atrophy the European Medicines Agency launched a study based on registry data. This manuscript describes some lessons learnt and considerations how to improve future registry-based studies that aim to inform regulatory decision-making. The study started with a feasibility assessment to select appropriate registries from the TREAT-NMD network. The feasibility assessment is key to understand upfront the quality, capability and capacity of registries to address a research question, as well as the potential limitations. Several tools are available on how to assess and ultimately improve data quality. Data from a registry becomes more valuable if it can be linked to other data sources to supplement data. For regulatory decision-making on orphan drugs, it is crucial to collect comprehensive data from non-treated patients. Missing information for important variables in non-treated patients complicates comparison with data from treated patients, as this may introduce bias into the results. Collaboration with registries has demonstrated opportunities for access to registry data and the steps needed to improve data quality. This requires more support in the form of funding, resources and training to understand the legal requirements.
{"title":"Learnings from a registry-based cohort study for spinal muscular atrophy disease","authors":"Carla J. Jonker , Kelly Plueschke , Kieran C. Breen , Mencía de Lemus Belmonte , Patrice Verpillat , Alexandra Pacurariu","doi":"10.1016/j.nmd.2025.106332","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.nmd.2025.106332","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Spinal muscular atrophy is a rare recessive progressive neurodegenerative disorder. To better understand the progression of spinal muscular atrophy the European Medicines Agency launched a study based on registry data. This manuscript describes some lessons learnt and considerations how to improve future registry-based studies that aim to inform regulatory decision-making. The study started with a feasibility assessment to select appropriate registries from the TREAT-NMD network. The feasibility assessment is key to understand upfront the quality, capability and capacity of registries to address a research question, as well as the potential limitations. Several tools are available on how to assess and ultimately improve data quality. Data from a registry becomes more valuable if it can be linked to other data sources to supplement data. For regulatory decision-making on orphan drugs, it is crucial to collect comprehensive data from non-treated patients. Missing information for important variables in non-treated patients complicates comparison with data from treated patients, as this may introduce bias into the results. Collaboration with registries has demonstrated opportunities for access to registry data and the steps needed to improve data quality. This requires more support in the form of funding, resources and training to understand the legal requirements.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":19135,"journal":{"name":"Neuromuscular Disorders","volume":"59 ","pages":"Article 106332"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2025-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145927819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}