Lung Function Impairment and Postural Spirometry Changes in Ambulatory Myotonic Dystrophy Patients

Myotonic dystrophy Type 1 (MD1, Steinert's disease), an autosomal dominant multisystem disease, is of the most common muscular dystrophies in adults, with a European prevalence of 3-15/100 000. The disease course is progressive, associating muscular weakness, wasting and myotonia. Respiratory dysfunction is common, involving a restrictive ventilatory abnormality and alveolar hypoventilation, originating from respiratory muscle weakness. Depending on the degree of impairment of their lung function, the quality of life and the prognosis of MD1 patients may be very variable. However, time course and prevalence of such respiratory function impairment have not been clearly identified. More importantly, factors able to predict poor respiratory outcome have not been defined and therefore early prognosis can not be assessed during the follow-up of these patients. In other neuromuscular disorders, especially Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), postural spirometry has been recommended to improve the detection of diaphragmatic involvement and some authors have suggested that the supine fall in the forced vital capacity could be used to initiate noninvasive positive pressure ventilation and predicts some respiratory symptoms.

In a sample of ambulatory patients with MD1, our study was designed to prospectively achieve two aims: 1) to assess the respective prevalence of a ventilatory restrictive pattern, respiratory muscle weakness, hypoxemia and hypercapnia and 2) to evaluate whether postural changes in lung volumes contribute to sensitize the diagnosis of respiratory weakness and could be used as a predictor of poor respiratory function, including hypoxemia, hypercapnia and restrictive ventilatory disease.