Publications by authors named "Soledad Monges"

Article Synopsis
  • Dystrophinopathies are neuromuscular disorders caused by changes in the DMD gene and are passed down through X-linked recessive inheritance.
  • Advances in technology like next generation sequencing can detect about 99% of these genetic variants, but some cases require deeper analysis, such as mRNA studies from muscle biopsies.
  • In a reported case, a child suspected of Duchenne muscular dystrophy had a muscle biopsy indicating dystrophin deficiency despite negative genetic tests; mRNA analysis uncovered a pseudoexon activation due to a novel genetic variant, illustrating the importance of this method in challenging cases.
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Objective: FHL1-related reducing body myopathy is an ultra-rare, X-linked dominant myopathy. In this cross-sectional study, we characterize skeletal muscle ultrasound, muscle MRI, and cardiac MRI findings in FHL1-related reducing body myopathy patients.

Methods: Seventeen patients (11 male, mean age 35.

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Background And Objectives: To investigate CSF findings in relation to clinical and electrodiagnostic subtypes, severity, and outcome of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) based on 1,500 patients in the International GBS Outcome Study.

Methods: Albuminocytologic dissociation (ACD) was defined as an increased protein level (>0.45 g/L) in the absence of elevated white cell count (<50 cells/μL).

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Background And Objectives: Infections play a key role in the development of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and have been associated with specific clinical features and disease severity. The clinical variation of GBS across geographical regions has been suggested to be related to differences in the distribution of preceding infections, but this has not been studied on a large scale.

Methods: We analyzed the first 1,000 patients included in the International GBS Outcome Study with available biosamples (n = 768) for the presence of a recent infection with , hepatitis E virus, , cytomegalovirus, and Epstein-Barr virus.

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Article Synopsis
  • Nemaline myopathy (NM) is a muscle disorder characterized by a wide range of clinical severity, largely influenced by specific genetic mutations, with ACTA1 being a key gene linked to severe cases.
  • Researchers studied a cohort of ten families with severe NM, finding that affected individuals often faced significant muscle weakness from birth and many did not survive beyond the early months of life; DNA testing revealed mutations in the ACTA1 gene for all cases.
  • Muscle biopsy analysis showed distinctive NM histopathology, such as abnormal muscle structure and changes in nuclear organization, which were validated by examining similar cases, suggesting a deeper understanding of the disease's genetic and structural complexities.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study looked at a score called mEGOS that helps predict if people with a sickness called Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) will be able to walk on their own or not.
  • Researchers used information from 1,500 patients from a big study to see if mEGOS worked well for people from different regions and made some improvements to it.
  • The updated score showed good results in different areas, but some places had better or worse outcomes than expected, and they found that things like age and how weak someone’s limbs were were important for predicting problems.
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Objective: To assess the psychometric properties of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ (PedsQL™ 3.0), Neuromuscular Module, version in Spanish for Argentina, for children aged 2-18 years with neuromuscular disease.

Population And Methods: Observational, analytical, prospective validation study conducted in Hospital Garrahan between March 19th, 2019 and March 9th, 2020.

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Muscular dystrophies due to heterozygous pathogenic variants in gene cover a broad spectrum of clinical presentations and severity with an age of onset ranging from the neonatal period to adulthood. The natural history of these conditions is not well defined, particularly in patients with congenital or early onset who arguably present with the highest disease burden. Thus the definition of natural history endpoints along with clinically revelant outcome measures is essential to establishing both clinical care planning and clinical trial readiness for this patient group.

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The myosin-directed chaperone UNC-45B is essential for sarcomeric organization and muscle function from Caenorhabditis elegans to humans. The pathological impact of UNC-45B in muscle disease remained elusive. We report ten individuals with bi-allelic variants in UNC45B who exhibit childhood-onset progressive muscle weakness.

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Congenital fiber type disproportion (CFTD) is a rare congenital myopathy subtype defined by slow type 1 hypotrophy in the absence of any other major structural findings such as rods, central nuclei or cores. Dominant missense changes in slow alpha-tropomyosin coded by TPM3 gene are the main cause of the CFTD. There are only a few reports of recessive loss-of-function mutations in TPM3 causing severe Nemaline Myopathy and CFTD.

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Objective: To define the current treatment practice of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS).

Methods: The study was based on prospective observational data from the first 1,300 patients included in the International GBS Outcome Study. We described the treatment practice of GBS in general, and for (1) severe forms (unable to walk independently), (2) no recovery after initial treatment, (3) treatment-related fluctuations, (4) mild forms (able to walk independently), and (5) variant forms including Miller Fisher syndrome, taking patient characteristics and hospital type into account.

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Several morphological phenotypes have been associated to RYR1-recessive myopathies. We recharacterized the RYR1-recessive morphological spectrum by a large monocentric study performed on 54 muscle biopsies from a large cohort of 48 genetically confirmed patients, using histoenzymology, immunohistochemistry, and ultrastructural studies. We also analysed the level of RyR1 expression in patients' muscle biopsies.

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Titin-related myopathies are heterogeneous clinical conditions associated with mutations in TTN. To define their histopathologic boundaries and try to overcome the difficulty in assessing the pathogenic role of TTN variants, we performed a thorough morphological skeletal muscle analysis including light and electron microscopy in 23 patients with different clinical phenotypes presenting pathogenic autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive (AR) mutations located in different TTN domains. We identified a consistent pattern characterized by diverse defects in oxidative staining with prominent nuclear internalization in congenital phenotypes (AR-CM) (n = 10), ± necrotic/regenerative fibers, associated with endomysial fibrosis and rimmed vacuoles (RVs) in AR early-onset Emery-Dreifuss-like (AR-ED) (n = 4) and AR adult-onset distal myopathies (n = 4), and cytoplasmic bodies (CBs) as predominant finding in hereditary myopathy with early respiratory failure (HMERF) patients (n = 5).

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Guillain-Barré syndrome is a heterogeneous disorder regarding the clinical presentation, electrophysiological subtype and outcome. Previous single country reports indicate that Guillain-Barré syndrome may differ among regions, but no systematic comparative studies have been conducted. Comparative studies are required to identify factors determining disease susceptibility, variation and prognosis, and to improve diagnostic criteria.

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Introduction: Mutations in the EXOSC3 gene are responsible for type 1 pontocerebellar hypoplasia, an autosomal recessive congenital disorder characterized by cerebellar atrophy, developmental delay, and anterior horn motor neuron degeneration. Muscle biopsies of these patients often show characteristics resembling classic spinal muscle atrophy, but to date, no distinct features have been identified.

Methods: Clinical data and muscle biopsy findings of 3 unrelated patients with EXOSC3 mutations are described.

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Background: Recent short-term clinical trials in patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) have indicated greater disease variability in terms of progression than expected. In addition, as average life-expectancy increases, reliable data is required on clinical progression in the older DMD population.

Objective: To determine the effects of corticosteroids on major clinical outcomes of DMD in a large multinational cohort of genetically confirmed DMD patients.

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Intraneural perineurioma (IP) is an under-recognized hypertrophic peripheral nerve tumor. It affects young patients involving frequently the sciatic nerve and its branches and presents with a progressive, painless and predominantly motor deficit. Magnetic resonance neurography (MRN) is a useful tool to localize the lesion, evaluate its extension, and discriminate between different etiologies.

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Introduction: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a severe muscular disease characterized by progressive loss of functional muscle mass followed by changes in body composition.

Aim: To describe body composition, resting energy expenditure (REE), and metabolic disorders in DMD patients followed-up at a tertiary care center. To analyze the association with type of steroid and ambulatory status, and to compare obese DMD patients with patients with multifactorial obesity.

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Mutations in RYR1 give rise to diverse skeletal muscle phenotypes, ranging from classical central core disease to susceptibility to malignant hyperthermia. Next-generation sequencing has recently shown that RYR1 is implicated in a wide variety of additional myopathies, including centronuclear myopathy. In this work, we established an international cohort of 21 patients from 18 families with autosomal recessive RYR1-related centronuclear myopathy, to better define the clinical, imaging, and histological spectrum of this disorder.

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Neuromuscular diseases are mostly genetic disorders, with chronic and progressive course. Affected people are at high risk of developing physical and emotional disabilities. In the last decades, the advance in technology and science has increased chronic pediatric patients survival rate, thus requiring an ongoing assistance in adult hospitals, making the transition a necessity and a challenge.

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Background/purpose: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an autosomal recessive neuromuscular disorder, considered one of the leading causes of infant mortality. It is caused by mutations in the SMN1 gene. A highly homologous copy of this gene named SMN2 and other neighbouring genes, SERF1A and NAIP, are considered phenotypic modifiers of the disease.

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Background: Congenital myopathies (CM) are a group of rare inherited muscle disorders characterized by particular histopathological alterations on muscle biopsy. Core-rod myopathy is a CM presenting with cores and rods as distinctive muscle morphological features.

Methods/results: We describe 3 young patients presenting congenital core-rod myopathy with bilateral foot-drop associated with autosomal recessive nebulin gene (NEB) mutations detected by exome sequencing.

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Analyzing the type and frequency of patient-specific mutations that give rise to Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an invaluable tool for diagnostics, basic scientific research, trial planning, and improved clinical care. Locus-specific databases allow for the collection, organization, storage, and analysis of genetic variants of disease. Here, we describe the development and analysis of the TREAT-NMD DMD Global database (http://umd.

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Background: Molecular diagnosis of the distal spinal muscular atrophies or distal hereditary motor neuropathies remains challenging because of clinical and genetic heterogeneity. Next generation sequencing offers potential for identifying de novo mutations of causative genes in isolated cases.

Patient Description: We present a 3.

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Nemaline myopathy (NM) is a rare congenital myopathy characterised by hypotonia, muscle weakness, and often skeletal muscle deformities with the presence of nemaline bodies (rods) in the muscle biopsy. The nebulin (NEB) gene is the most commonly mutated and is thought to account for approximately 50% of genetically diagnosed cases of NM. We undertook a detailed muscle morphological analysis of 14 NEB-mutated NM patients with different clinical forms to define muscle pathological patterns and correlate them with clinical course and genotype.

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