AUTHOR=Chen Zhiyong , Tan Yi Jayne , Lian Michelle M. , Tandiono Moses , Foo Jia Nee , Lim Weng Khong , Kandiah Nagaendran , Tan Eng-King , Ng Adeline S. L. TITLE=High Diagnostic Utility Incorporating a Targeted Neurodegeneration Gene Panel With MRI Brain Diagnostic Algorithms in Patients With Young-Onset Cognitive Impairment With Leukodystrophy JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology VOLUME=12 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2021.631407 DOI=10.3389/fneur.2021.631407 ISSN=1664-2295 ABSTRACT=
Leukodystrophies are a diverse group of genetic disorders that selectively involve the white matter of the brain and are a frequent cause of young-onset cognitive impairment. Genetic diagnosis is challenging. Data on the utility of incorporating brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) diagnostic algorithms with next-generation sequencing (NGS) for diagnosis in a real-life clinical setting is limited. We performed sequencing using a custom-designed panel of 200 neurodegeneration-associated genes on 45 patients with young-onset cognitive impairment with leukodystrophy, and classified them based on van der Knaap et al.'s MRI diagnostic algorithm. We found that 20/45 (44.4%) patients carried pathogenic variants or novel variants predicted to be pathogenic (one in