Development and Validation of an Online Neurobehavioral Evaluation Tool for PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome (PHTS)

With greater understanding of the biology of PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome (PHTS), including patients with and without neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) phenotypes, there is potential to develop novel personalized therapeutics. Given the recent observation that many PHTS patients with and without NDD have significant neurobehavioral manifestations, it will be crucial to broadly track a range of neurobehavioral domains as part of future trials. Unfortunately, there are few well-validated measures that would be appropriate for the full range of presentations in the PHTS population. Further, as a rare genetic syndrome, PHTS patients are geographically distributed making frequent data collection during research very difficult. Thus, the overarching aim of this proposal is to develop and validate an online neurobehavioral evaluation tool (NET) with caregiver-report survey scales and patient-completed webcam-collected performance measures that captures key neurobehavioral information. In partnership with patients, caregivers, and scientist-clinician experts, the study will develop, pilot test, and validate NET survey and performance measures. Specifically, at least 240 caregiver-patient pairs will be recruited (patient ages 4-24) from PHTS without NDD, PHTS with NDD, and controls (sibling and unrelated healthy controls). NET data will be collected at baseline, 1-month, and 4-month follow-up. Aim 1 will focus on the development and validation of brief, psychometrically-sound NET survey scales. Aim 2 will conduct group comparisons on NET measures. Aim 3 will use longitudinal data to evaluate short-term stability of NET survey scales and describe neurobehavioral change within and across study groups. The project will also explore the feasibility of performance measure collection, provide initial psychometric evaluation, and conduct a group comparison of performance measures. If the project aims are achieved, and future validation supports research and clinical use, the NET will be an efficient, reliable, valid, co-normed, multi-modal instrument, that, by virtue of online (at-home) administration, will decrease patient and family burden and increase the temporal resolution and power of future longitudinal studies and clinical trials.