About a third of adults with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) show signs of poor, and abnormal, lung function, according to new analyses that found breathing problems were more likely in patients with severe disease — including those with type 2 SMA and those without an ability to walk.
Lower lung function among these SMA patients also was tied to an increased need for noninvasive ventilation (NIV) and scoliosis surgery, and to worse motor function, the researchers found.
“Respiratory function in adult SMA patients is relatively frequently impaired, substantially stable, and significantly correlated with motor function and disease severity,” the team wrote, noting that “disease duration and age do not correlate with respiratory dysfunction.”
