The most bothersome symptoms in neuromuscular diseases: the ERN EURO NMD Survey

Abstract

Background: Neuromuscular diseases (NMDs) comprise a range of genetic and acquired rare disorders that affect motor neurons, peripheral nerves, neuromuscular junctions and skeletal muscles, leading to significant impairments such as muscle weakness and fatigue resulting in functional limitations. This study aims to investigate the prevalence and severity of disease-related symptoms in adult patients with NMDs registered in the European Reference Network (ERN) EURO-NMD. A cross-sectional electronic survey was conducted with 1,253 participants who reported the severity of 28 symptoms, which were scored using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). Results: The results identified muscle fatigue, weakness and impaired physical function/activity as the most severe and prevalent symptoms in all NMD groups, followed by coordination and/or balance problems, muscle stiffness, mental fatigue, and pain. Notably, the analysis highlighted differences in symptom severity between disease subtypes and underlined the need for standardised patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) to address the broad heterogeneity of NMDs. Conclusions: The findings stress the critical importance of capturing patient perspectives to guide clinical care, research priorities and therapeutic development. This work argues for the development of uniform PROMs to better assess disease impact, natural history and treatment efficacy, contributing to improved patient-centred care across diverse NMD populations.