Mitochondrial Myopathy Rating Scale

Development and Validation of a Myopathy Rating Scale in Mitochondrial Disease

Investigators have assembled an existing infrastructure of physical therapists, clinical coordinators and Bioinformatics; as well as expertise in developing and validating tools to measure disease course in a longitudinal study, to support completion of the proposed studies. Aim 1 serves to validate the Mitochondrial Myopathy Objective Assessment Tool (MM-COAST) and Mitochondrial Myopathy Functional Scale (MMFS) in nucleotide-binding protein-like (NUBPL)-subjects. Aim 2 aims to devise a Primary Mitochondrial Diseases (PMD)-specific cerebellar ataxia outcome measure for future clinical trials.

Nucleotide-binding protein-like (NUBPL)-Natural history data will be used to inform future interventional clinical trial design, while the validated MM-COAST, Mitochondrial Myopathy Rating Scale (MMRS) and newly devised PMD-ataxia scale would be utilized as meaningful quantitative outcome measures in future NUBPL-multicenter natural history and clinical trials.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Primary Mitochondrial Disease

Detailed Description

Currently, natural history knowledge is limited for all PMD. The clinical phenotype and disease course may be distinct depending on the PMD genetic etiology, however variability between family members harboring the same genetic mutation is also well described.

No prospective cohort studies exist for nucleotide-binding protein-like (NUBPL)- disease. NUBPL is an assembly factor for human mitochondrial complex I, which is the initial step and largest of the mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes. Patients with NUBPL pathogenic variants have decreased complex I activity. Reported clinical features in NUBPL-disease includes developmental delay, ataxia, dysarthria, nystagmus, and gross motor regression. Accurate understanding of NUBPL- natural history is needed, not only to track disease course and to inform prognosis, but also to guide clinical trial design.

A major barrier to precise documentation of clinical progression has been the absence of meaningful and validated PMD-specific outcome measures. The Principal Investigator (PI) of this proposal was awarded a United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (UMDF) 2016 Clinical Grant Award to support development of a Mitochondrial Myopathy Rating Scale currently being validated (Preliminary Data), established a Mitochondrial Myopathy Objective Assessment Tool, MM-COAST, developed a PMD-specific Activity Factors Scale to standardize estimation of energy expenditure and was awarded a UMDF Early Stage Investigator Award (2019) to conduct a Mitochondrial Myopathy Natural History Study. The long-term goal of these cumulative studies is to promote robust PMD clinical trial design and drug approval, as facilitated by natural history data and validation of PMD-specific objective outcome measures that enable accurate quantitation of symptoms. The overarching hypothesis of this present proposal is that deeper understanding of NUBPL-natural history will promote meaningful clinical trial design. This proposal will utilize an existing Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol (#16-013364, PI Zolkipli) and research infrastructure including physical therapists, biostatistician and bioinformatician for automated clinical data extraction from the medical record.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 20

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Amanda Wellik, BA; Phone Number: 267 426 4961; Email: MitochondrialMyopathyResearch@chop.edu
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Jean Flickinger, PT; Phone Number: 267 426 4961; Email: MitochondrialMyopathyResearch@chop.edu

Study Locations

• United States
  • Pennsylvania
    • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104
      • Recruiting
      • Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
      • Contact: Amanda Wellik; Phone Number: 267-426-4961; Email: MitochondrialMyopathyResearch@chop.edu

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 6 years and older (Child, Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: N/A

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Individuals who harbor pathogenic variants in NUBPL

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

1. All subjects confirmed to have definite nucleotide-binding protein-like (NUBPL)-disease of any age, gender, race, ethnicity or ambulatory status will be enrolled.
2. Subjects may receive standard-of-care clinical support, including mitochondrial supplements.
3. Subjects can be asymptomatic (e.g. carrier siblings of known NUBPL-patients) at time of study enrollment.
4. Individual or parental informed consent and, if appropriate, assent must be provided.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Subject does not have a pathogenic NUBPL variant.
2. Unable to travel to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for clinic visits.
3. Actively enrolled in a drug trial and received study drug within 90 days of this study.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Number of groups / cohorts

1

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Nucleotide-binding protein-like (NUBPL)-Primary Mitochondrial Disease adult and child subjects; Any patient with NUBPL-Primary Mitochondrial Disease is eligible to be enrolled

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Muscle Strength of MM-COAST	Muscle strength will be measured longitudinally by handheld dynamometry strength assessments to confirm muscle weakness in proximal and distal muscle groups.	Up to one year
Balance of the MM-COAST	Balance will be measured by: (1) Standing tandem with eyes closed, (2) Standing tandem with eyes open, and (3) Single leg stand with eyes closed tests.	Up to one year
Dexterity of the MM-COAST	Dexterity will be measured by 9 Hole Peg Test (9HPT) and Functional Dexterity Test (FDT).	Up to one year
Mitochondrial Disease Burden for Adults	All subjects will complete the 'gold standard' Newcastle Scale of disease burden. Newcastle Adult Scale (NMDAS): Each question in the NMDAS has a possible score from 0-5. Each of the first 3 section scores are calculated by simply summing the scores obtained for each question in that section. The higher the score the more severe the disease. The quality of life section has separate scoring.	Up to one year
Mitochondrial Disease Burden for Children	All subjects and their parents will complete the 'gold standard' Newcastle Scale of disease burden. Newcastle Pediatric Scale (NPMDS): NPMDS is scored by section and the final (total) score is the sum of all section scores. The section scores vary by age group (0-24 months, 2-11 years, and 12-18 years). Maximum possible total NPMDS scores are 95 for subjects under 24 months of age and 107 for those between two and 18 years of age. Higher scores indicate worse conditions.	Up to one year
Challenges in Activities of Daily Life (ADLs)	All subjects and their parents will complete the Karnofsky-Lansky score to assess functional abilities at each visit. Karnofsky Lansky Scale: 0-100. 0-40: Unable to care for self, requires equivalent of institutional or hospital care; disease may be progressing rapidly. 50-70: Unable to work; able to live at home and care for most personal needs; varying amount of assistance needed. 80-100: Able to carry on normal activity and to work; no special care needed.	Up to one year
Functional Tasks of the Mitochondrial Myopathy Functional Scale (MMFS)	The MMFS (In Person and Telemedicine Versions) will be used to quantify motor performance in NUBPL-disease in abilities to complete functional tasks such as standing, walking and gait. MMFS data will be correlated using Pearson correlation coefficient to Newcastle and Karnofsky scores, and objective measures to assess for clinical meaning. MMFS Scale: 3: Able (fully meets criteria); 2: Moderately Able (partially meets, some compensation needed); 1: Minimally Able (significant compensation needed); 0: Unable MMFS Totals: In-person Version: Total score: */ 66 (max score), Telemedicine Version: Total score: */54 (max score)	Up to one year
Clinical Progression: Survival	Patients will be marked as either "alive" or "deceased" at the time of a given visit date.	Up to one year
Clinical Progression: Growth	Patients will have their vitals recorded at the date of visit to obtain BMI (Kg/m^2)) measurement, Height (m) and weight (kg) are required to calculate BMI.	Up to one year
Clinical Progression: Other Illnesses	Patients will have other illnesses not related to their mitochondrial disease recorded along with date of diagnosis and stability.	Up to one year
Clinical Progression: Hospitalizations	Patients will have prior hospitalizations counted and recorded. Any hospitalizations occurring within a year from the visit date will have specific information recorded including the dates of admission and discharge, and the reasons for admission and discharge.	Up to one year
Clinical Progression: Ambulatory Status	Patients will have their ambulatory status assessed by recording whether or not they can take 5 steps on their own. Patients' use of different kinds of wheelchairs will be recorded (manual, power assist, or power wheelchair or scooter) along with whether they are able to ambulate in the community or only in the household.	Up to one year
Clinical Progression: Pacemaker Requirement	As part of a patient's cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET), pacemaker status will be assessed, and if a patient utilizes a pacemaker, it's make, model, and settings will be recorded.	Up to one year
Clinical Progression: Ventilatory Support	As part of a patient's respiratory history, ventilatory support status will be assessed by recording whether a patient uses the any of the following respiratory equipment: cough assist device, non-invasive ventilation including continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and Bi-pap, chest percussion, suctioning devices, other ventilation devices.	Up to one year
Clinical Progression: Gastrostomy Status	As part of a patient's nutritional assessment, a patient's gastrostomy status will be assessed by determining whether a patient utilizes a gastrostomy tube (or g-tube), when they had their g-tube placed and why, and whether it resulted in weight gain.	Up to one year

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Cerebellar Ataxia Outcome Measure for Primary Mitochondrial Disease (PMD)	Investigators will utilize a similar approach to development of the MM-COAST and MMFS and systematically collate and administer existing ataxia scales, focusing on quantitation of cerebellar ataxia, dysarthria and tremor, and introduce modifications to ensure PMD-specificity of this outcome measure. Once developed, investigators will administer the devised ataxia scale to the NUBPL subjects at every clinic visit, where the time to completion and modifications needed are assessed. Further iterations of the ataxia scale will be re-assessed in the NUBPL-subjects at every clinic visit and compared to the performance of the scale in PMD patients with other genetic etiologies. Participants will be instructed to refrain from strenuous exercise 24 hours prior to each visit. Feasibility and testing reproducibility of the PMD-ataxia scale will be evaluated at 2 different time points. The ataxia scale will be developed in months 0-6 and administered in months 6-12 of the 1-year project period.	Up to one year
Clinical Meaningfulness of Ataxia Quantification.	All subjects will complete the following patient/parent-reported surveys: Newcastle Adult Scale (NMDAS) has 3 section scores that are calculated by summing the scores of each question (0-5). The Newcastle Quality of Life (Section IV) has separate scoring. Newcastle Pediatric Scale (NPMDS) is scored by section(scores vary by age group) and the final (total) score is the sum of all section scores. The maximum possible total NPMDS scores are 95 for subjects under 24 months of age and 107 for those 2-18 years of age. In both, higher scores indicate worse conditions. Karnofsky Lansky Scale is scaled 0-100. 0-40: unable to care for self, 50-70: unable to work; able to live at home, care for most personal needs, 80-100: Able to carry on normal activity and work; no special care needed. To assess if the quantified ataxia scores will be clinically meaningful: correlation to the 'gold standard' Newcastle Scale of disease severity and MM-COAST objective assessments in Aim 1 will be assessed.	Up to one year
Evaluation of Health-Related Quality of Life by PedsQL	PedsQL is a 23-item questionnaire that evaluates health-related quality of life that is reported as a total score and 3 summary scores that include Physical Health, Psychosocial Health and School/Work with a higher score indicating better quality of life. The range for the scores are 0-100.	Up to one year
Evaluation of daily functional activities by PEDI-CAT	The Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory Computer Adaptive Test (PEDI-CAT) is a test that evaluates daily functional activities. A t-score of 50 represents the function of the general population (SD of 10). A t-score below 30 reflects poor performance compared to the general population. The range for the scores are 20-80.	Up to one year

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
• Collaborators: University of Pennsylvania; United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (UMDF)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: zarazuela zolkipli-cunningham, MBChB, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Kaufmann P, Engelstad K, Wei Y, Kulikova R, Oskoui M, Sproule DM, Battista V, Koenigsberger DY, Pascual JM, Shanske S, Sano M, Mao X, Hirano M, Shungu DC, Dimauro S, De Vivo DC. Natural history of MELAS associated with mitochondrial DNA m.3243A>G genotype. Neurology. 2011 Nov 29;77(22):1965-71. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e31823a0c7f. Epub 2011 Nov 16.
• Phoenix C, Schaefer AM, Elson JL, Morava E, Bugiani M, Uziel G, Smeitink JA, Turnbull DM, McFarland R. A scale to monitor progression and treatment of mitochondrial disease in children. Neuromuscul Disord. 2006 Dec;16(12):814-20. doi: 10.1016/j.nmd.2006.08.006. Epub 2006 Nov 22.
• DeBrosse C, Nanga RPR, Wilson N, D'Aquilla K, Elliott M, Hariharan H, Yan F, Wade K, Nguyen S, Worsley D, Parris-Skeete C, McCormick E, Xiao R, Cunningham ZZ, Fishbein L, Nathanson KL, Lynch DR, Stallings VA, Yudkoff M, Falk MJ, Reddy R, McCormack SE. Muscle oxidative phosphorylation quantitation using creatine chemical exchange saturation transfer (CrCEST) MRI in mitochondrial disorders. JCI Insight. 2016 Nov 3;1(18):e88207. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.88207.
• Burstein DS, McBride MG, Min J, Paridon AA, Perelman S, Huffman EM, O'Malley S, Del Grosso J, Groepenhoff H, Paridon SM, Brothers JA. Normative Values for Cardiopulmonary Exercise Stress Testing Using Ramp Cycle Ergometry in Children and Adolescents. J Pediatr. 2021 Feb;229:61-69.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2020.09.018. Epub 2020 Sep 11.
• McKay MJ, Baldwin JN, Ferreira P, Simic M, Vanicek N, Hiller CE, Nightingale EJ, Moloney NA, Quinlan KG, Pourkazemi F, Sman AD, Nicholson LL, Mousavi SJ, Rose K, Raymond J, Mackey MG, Chard A, Hubscher M, Wegener C, Fong Yan A, Refshauge KM, Burns J; 1000 Norms Project Consortium. 1000 Norms Project: protocol of a cross-sectional study cataloging human variation. Physiotherapy. 2016 Mar;102(1):50-6. doi: 10.1016/j.physio.2014.12.002. Epub 2015 Jan 22.
• Schaefer AM, Phoenix C, Elson JL, McFarland R, Chinnery PF, Turnbull DM. Mitochondrial disease in adults: a scale to monitor progression and treatment. Neurology. 2006 Jun 27;66(12):1932-4. doi: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000219759.72195.41.
• Gorman GS, Schaefer AM, Ng Y, Gomez N, Blakely EL, Alston CL, Feeney C, Horvath R, Yu-Wai-Man P, Chinnery PF, Taylor RW, Turnbull DM, McFarland R. Prevalence of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA mutations related to adult mitochondrial disease. Ann Neurol. 2015 May;77(5):753-9. doi: 10.1002/ana.24362. Epub 2015 Mar 28.
• Rahman J, Rahman S. Mitochondrial medicine in the omics era. Lancet. 2018 Jun 23;391(10139):2560-2574. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30727-X. Epub 2018 Jun 18.
• Friederich MW, Perez FA, Knight KM, Van Hove RA, Yang SP, Saneto RP, Van Hove JLK. Pathogenic variants in NUBPL result in failure to assemble the matrix arm of complex I and cause a complex leukoencephalopathy with thalamic involvement. Mol Genet Metab. 2020 Mar;129(3):236-242. doi: 10.1016/j.ymgme.2019.12.013. Epub 2019 Dec 30.
• Kimonis V, Al Dubaisi R, Maclean AE, Hall K, Weiss L, Stover AE, Schwartz PH, Berg B, Cheng C, Parikh S, Conner BR, Wu S, Hasso AN, Scott DA, Koenig MK, Karam R, Tang S, Smith M, Chao E, Balk J, Hatchwell E, Eis PS. NUBPL mitochondrial disease: new patients and review of the genetic and clinical spectrum. J Med Genet. 2021 May;58(5):314-325. doi: 10.1136/jmedgenet-2020-106846. Epub 2020 Jun 9.
• Glanzman AM, Mazzone ES, Young SD, Gee R, Rose K, Mayhew A, Nelson L, Yun C, Alexander K, Darras BT, Zolkipli-Cunningham Z, Tennekoon G, Day JW, Finkel RS, Mercuri E, De Vivo DC, Baldwin R, Bishop KM, Montes J. Evaluator Training and Reliability for SMA Global Nusinersen Trials1. J Neuromuscul Dis. 2018;5(2):159-166. doi: 10.3233/JND-180301.
• Campolina-Sampaio GP, Lasmar LM, Ribeiro BS, Giannetti JG. The Newcastle Pediatric Mitochondrial Disease Scale: translation and cultural adaptation for use in Brazil. Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2016 Nov;74(11):909-913. doi: 10.1590/0004-282X20160137. Erratum In: Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2017 Feb;75(2):i.
• MANUAL FOR NEWCASTLE MITOCHONDRIAL DISEASE ADULT SCALE (NMDAS). Wellcome Trust Centre Mitochondrial Research.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 24, 2017
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): March 24, 2024
• Study Completion (Anticipated): March 24, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 6, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 21, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): February 22, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 3, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 1, 2023
• Last Verified: May 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Mitochondrial Myopathy; NUBPL
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Metabolic Diseases; Nervous System Diseases; Musculoskeletal Diseases; Neuromuscular Diseases; Mitochondrial Diseases; Muscular Diseases; Mitochondrial Myopathies
• Other Study ID Numbers: 16-013364

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No