Participants
One hundred and twenty-one adult Pompe patients were included for this study. The inclusion process was as shown in Fig. 1. There were two reasons for excluding patients: no PROMs collected before the start of ERT (n = 10) and no record of date of symptom onset available (n = 1). For each pair of physical outcome and PROM that we analyzed, the number of patients available for analysis was determined by whether these outcomes were assessed before ERT and whether the two measurements were within 3 months of each other. The exact number of patients per analysis can be found in the Supplement Table 1.
Table 1 shows the characteristics of the study population at the time of examination. Participants had a median age of 53 years (range 23–79) and a median disease duration of 16 years (range 0.2–50), 53% were women, 45% were partially or permanently wheelchair dependent, and 26% used mechanical ventilation.
Associations between physical outcomes and PROMs
First, we assessed whether linear or non-linear models were needed to describe relationships between the physical outcomes and PROMs. In most cases, non-linear models did not provide a better fit of the data, and linear models were selected. For the relationship between the MRC and PCS, and the HHD and R-PAct non-linear models were statistically better (p-values are presented in the Supplement Table 2). However, on visual inspection of these two distributions, there is no strong evidence supporting the non-linear models. The Supplement Fig. 1 displays the fitted results of linear and non-linear models for both distributions. For simplicity, the linear models were therefore used.
Table 1
Characteristics of the study population
Demographic and clinical characteristics | Patients (n = 121) |
Women: number (%) | 64 (53) |
Age at examination in years: median (range) | 53 (23–79) |
Disease duration* at examination in years: median (range) | 16 (0.2–50) |
Wheelchair** use at examination: number (%) | 54 (45) |
Respiratory support at examination: number (%) | 32 (26) |
Physical outcomes | Median (range) |
FVC upright (% pred) | 77 (10–117) |
FVC supine (% pred) | 63 (13–107) |
HHD sum score (% max) | 81 (21–100) |
MRC sum score (% max) | 85 (39–100) |
6MWT (% pred) | 67 (6-120) |
PROMs | Median (range) |
SF-36 PCS score (norm-based) | 33 (17–63) |
SF-36 MCS score (norm-based) | 48 (19–72) |
RHS score | 29 (11–36) |
R-PAct score | 60 (7-100) |
*duration from symptom onset, **partial and permanent wheelchair use |
FVC: Forced Vital Capacity, HHD: Hand-Held Dynamometry, MRC: Medical Research Council, 6MWT: six-Minute Walk Test, SF-36: Short-Form 36 Health Survey, RHS: Rotterdam Handicap Scale, R-Pact: Rash-built Pompe-Specific Activity scale. |
In the two following sections, we will use two pairs of outcomes as examples to describe the interpretation of the results. In the clinical trial on ERT in Pompe disease, the two key physical outcomes were FVC upright and 6MWT scores. We will describe the positive relationships of FVC upright with RHS, and of 6MWT with R-Pact below. The results for all models can be found in the Supplement material Table 3.1–3.20. |
FVC upright with RHS
On average across patients, scoring one percent-point higher on the FVC upright (presented as percentage of predicted) corresponded to a 0.147 points higher RHS score (Estimate: 0.147; 95%CI [0.107, 0.186]; p < 0.001), accounting for sex, disease duration and the use of wheelchair and ventilator (Supplement Table 3.3).
Also wheelchair dependence (Estimate: -4.069; 95%CI [-5.599, -2.539 ]) was associated with a worse RHS score: a wheelchair dependent person having a 4.069 point lower RHS score on average. No significant difference in RHS scores was found among patients of different sex, disease duration and the use of ventilation (Supplement Table 3.3).
6MWT with R-PAct
A one percent-point higher 6MWT (also presented as percentage of predicted) corresponded, on average, to a 0.348 unit higher R-PAct score (Estimate: 0.348; 95%CI [ 0.147, 0.549 ]; p = 0.01), accounting for sex, disease duration and the use of wheelchair and ventilator (Supplement Table 3.20).
R-PAct scores were not found to be related to sex, disease duration and the use of wheelchair and ventilation (Supplement Table 3.20). Figure 2 (right-hand side) shows the model results for the relationships between 6MWT and R-PAct for a female patients with a median disease duration and no wheelchair or respiratory support.
Strength of associations across models
The aforementioned results provide the interpretation for the specific associations between one pair of physical outcome and PROM, using the original regression coefficients. However, to compare the strength of the relationships across models, we applied standardized regression coefficients. Please note that these standardized coefficients do not have the same interpretation as the original coefficients. They do not correspond to the unit of measurement of the specific outcomes, and can therefore be compared in size between the different pairs of outcomes. Figure 3 provides the visualization of the strength of the associations as a heatmap. Green indicates a negative association, red positive. The stronger the association, the more intense the color.
A better FVC upright was associated with better PCS scores (Standardized Estimate: 0.47; CI [0.244, 0.696]), RHS scores (Standardized Estimate: 0.56; 95%CI [0.41, 0.71]) and R-PAct scores (Standardized Estimate: 0.485; 95%CI [0.304, 0.666]), accounting for the effect of sex, disease duration and the use of wheelchair and ventilator. Higher FVC supine score was associated with better RHS (Standardized Estimate: 0.387; 95%CI [0.207, 0.567]) and R-PAct (Standardized Estimate: 0.396; CI [0.203, 0.588]), accounting for the effect of sex, disease duration and the use of wheelchair and ventilator. A borderline significant relationship was found between the PCS score and FVC supine (p = 0.061, Table 4 in the supplementary material), and, in general, the standardized coefficients for FVC upright were larger than for FVC supine.
The MRC score was positively correlated with the PCS (Standardized Estimate: 0.47; 95%CI [0.254, 0.686]), RHS (Standardized Estimate: 0.423; 95%CI [0.262, 0.583]) and R-PAct (Standardized Estimate: 0.595; 95%CI [0.426, 0.764]), accounting for the effect of sex, disease duration and the use of wheelchair and ventilator. The HHD score was positively correlated with the PCS (Standardized Estimate: 0.323; 95%CI [0.096, 0.55]), RHS (Standardized Estimate: 0.29; 95%CI [0.105, 0.474]) and R-PAct (Standardized Estimate: 0.386; 95%CI [0.196, 0.577]), accounting for the effect of sex, disease duration and the use of wheelchair and ventilator. In comparison, HHD standardized coefficients were smaller than for MRC.
The 6MWT score was positively associated with the PCS (Standardized Estimate: 0.584; 95%CI [0.289, 0.878]), RHS (Standardized Estimate: 0.485; 95%CI [0.232, 0.739]) and R-PAct (Standardized Estimate: 0.495; 95%CI [0.217, 0.773]), accounting for the effect of sex, disease duration and the use of wheelchair and ventilator.
No significant relationships were found between the mental component of the SF36 and any of the physical outcome measures (p > 0.05, Table 4 in the supplementary material).
The size of the standardized coefficients can be interpreted in terms of standard deviations. In bird-view, the R-PAct, RHS and PCS would be between 0.3 and 0.6 (rounded) standard deviations higher when a physical outcome is one standard deviation larger.
Heatmap visualizing the strength of the associations between physical outcomes and PROMs. Each cell represents one linear regression model. The standardized regression coefficient are displayed to ensure the comparability of different models. Green indicates a negative association, red a positive one. The stronger the association, the more intense the color. Statistically significant coefficients are indicated by *. Detailed results including estimates for sex, disease duration and the use of wheelchair and ventilator can be found in the supplemental material.