Families driven drug development and clinical trials: a pilot study in Dravet Syndrome to delineate what really matters

Abstract

Background Dravet syndrome (DS) is a developmental and epileptic encephalopathy. Patients rapidly develop drug resistant seizures but patients with DS develop non-seizures disorders that are often age related. We aimed to identify the caregivers’ opinion on the outcome measures that matters in clinical trials in individuals with DS and their correlation with the age of the individual with DS. Methods We conducted a prospective international study with convenience sample based on a 11-closed questions survey developed with three European patients’ advocacy groups (PAG) for DS (France, Italy and Germany). The items were about seizures and daily life outcomes that a clinical trial should target according to family opinion. Items were scored from 1 (not important at all) to 5 (highly important). Statistical analyses were performed to evaluate country (ANOVA and khi2 tests) and age effect (Spearman's ρ). Results Hundred and fifty-three caregivers answered the survey (68%: France, 28%: Germany and 24%: Italy; affected individuals’ characteristics: 86 males, age: 11.4 [25th -75th percentile:7-20.4] years). Demographic characteristics were not significantly different between countries. Families ranked as important almost all the items proposed. However, most of the items related to daily life had the highest rank in all 3 countries compared to items about seizures (p = 0.02). Positive correlation between age and age at diagnosis (ρ = 0.26, p = 0.02) and negative correlations between age and targeting seizure duration and between age (ρ =-0.25, p = 0.005) and targeting the need of referral to hospital (ρ =-0.26, p = 0.005) were identified. Conclusions This study emphasized the DS families’ expectations from therapies beyond seizure efficacy. These data can help to adapt patients-centered outcome measures in future clinical and real-life trials in DS.

A European pilot study in Dravet Syndrome to delineate what really matters for the patients and families

“…RN and MK and the European Joint program on rare diseases. This study is a peer‐reviewed modified version of the preprint server publication researchsquare 42 …”

“…This study is a peer‐reviewed modified version of the preprint server publication researchsquare. 42 …”