| The PREDICT-HD
study is funded by the National Institutes of Health.
This ongoing
study is led by Dr. Jane Paulson at the University
of Iowa.
PREDICT-HD is an observational study of individuals
18 years and older who are at risk
for HD and have undergone presymptomatic testing to
determine if they carry the HD gene and will subsequently
develop the disease. The goal of PREDICT-HD is to determine
the earliest signs of active disease in persons inheriting
an expanded number of CAG repeats in the HD gene. This
information will allow future clinical trials of new
drugs delaying the onset of HD to be administered at
the earliest possible moment. This is the first large
study to recruit at-risk persons who have undergone
predictive testing.
Results of this ongoing study found that changes in
measures of thinking and reasoning could be identified,
on average, two years prior to the development of more
obvious symptoms of HD, which led to a diagnosis. This
study suggests that performing these relatively short
tests over time may prove very useful in understanding
early changes in the brain of individuals who are becoming
symptomatic with HD.
- Paulsen JS, Zhao H, Stout JC, Brinkman R, Guttman
M, Ross CA, Como P, Manning CM, Hayden MR, Shoulson
I and the Huntington Study Group. Clinical markers
of early disease in persons near onset of Huntington’s
disease. Neurology 57: 658-662, 2001.
- Langbehn DR, Brinkman RR, Falush D, Paulsen JS,
Hayden MR. A new model for prediction of the age of
onset and penetrance for Huntington's disease based
on CAG length. Clinical Genetics 65:267-277,
2004
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