Clinical Description
Inclusion body myopathy associated with Paget disease of bone and/or frontotemporal dementia (IBMPFD) is characterized by adult-onset proximal and distal muscle weakness (clinically resembling a limb-girdle muscular dystrophy syndrome), early-onset Paget disease of bone (PDB), and premature frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
Death typically occurs in the sixth or seventh decade from progressive respiratory failure.
Recently Al-Obeidi et al [2018] studied 231 individuals (118 males and 113 females) from 36 families and found that myopathy, PDB, and FTD were present in 90%, 42%, and 30% of the individuals, respectively, beginning at an average age of 43, 41, and 56 years, respectively. Intra- and interfamilial variability is observed in this disorder.
Myopathy. In families studied thus far, 90% of affected individuals had proximal limb-girdle weakness.
Diagnosis was at a mean age of 43 years (range: 3-61 years; typically 20s-40s).
Muscle weakness is usually proximal, involving the hip and shoulder girdle muscles; however, several individuals have had initial weakness of the muscles of the hands and feet.
Affected individuals experience difficulty walking upstairs and raising the arms above the shoulders.
The gait is typically waddling and the stance lordotic.
Weakness progresses and other limb and respiratory muscle groups become involved over time. Many affected individuals become wheelchair bound.
Muscle biopsy findings:
Light microscopy of muscle biopsy reveals nonspecific changes: variability in fiber size, type I fiber predominance, and atrophic and hypertrophic fibers. Fibers may contain single or multiple vacuoles. Rimmed vacuoles and cytoplasmic ubiquitin and TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) positive inclusions visible in some fibers are characteristic of inclusion body myopathy [
Weihl et al 2008]. The inclusions appear with time and can be observed at a later stage of the disease in some individuals. In advanced cases, severe degenerative muscle changes and fatty replacement of muscle fibers may be noted. Inflammatory cells are absent.
Electron microscopy may show nonspecific cytoplasmic changes. The characteristic inclusions, composed of randomly oriented tubulofilaments roughly 15-21 nm in diameter, are seen in muscle nuclei and in cytoplasm. In one family, atrophic and vacuolated muscle fibers containing abundant cytoplasmic-paired helical filaments with epitopes of phosphorylated tau, congophilia, abnormal accumulation of β-amyloid precursor protein (βAPP) epitopes, and accumulation of apolipoprotein E (ApoE) were observed [
Alvarez et al 1998].
Paget disease of bone (PDB). In families studied by Al-Obeidi et al [2018], 42% of affected individuals had PDB. The mean age at diagnosis was 41 years (range: 31-61 years). PDB was often asymptomatic, but was diagnosed based on the serum concentration of alkaline phosphatase and bone scans; therefore, it may be underdiagnosed.
PDB involves focal areas of increased bone turnover that lead to complications such as bone pain, localized painful enlargement and deformity of the long bones, pathologic fractures (rare), and deafness. PDB typically manifests as spine and/or hip pain.
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD). FTD is a degenerative condition of the frontal and anterior temporal lobes that differs from the dementia seen in disorders such as Alzheimer disease (see Alzheimer Disease Overview), Pick disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (see Genetic Prion Disease). The areas of the brain affected by FTD control reasoning, personality, movement, speech, social graces, and language; memory is preserved.
Among those studied, features were consistent with frontotemporal dementia. In the early stages, dysnomia, dyscalculia, comprehension deficits, and paraphasic errors were evident. Adjusting for aphasia, episodic memory is minimally impaired in the early stages. Progressive aphasia with inability to speak, auditory comprehension deficits for even one-step commands, alexia, and agraphia are noted.
In families studied by Al-Obeidi et al [2018], approximately 30% of affected individuals had dementia. Mean age at diagnosis of dementia was 56 years (range: 30-86 years). This was a cross-sectional study and several individuals were not old enough to have developed FTD. Several individuals were in advanced stages of dementia when diagnosed with IBMPFD and detailed evaluation of the FTD was not possible in them.
Dilated cardiomyopathy. In several individuals in the first family originally reported by Kimonis et al [2000] with limb-girdle myopathy and Paget disease of bone, cardiac failure and cardiomyopathy were noted in the later stages of the disease. Hübbers et al [2007] reported dilated cardiomyopathy characterized by ubiquitin-positive cytoplasmic aggregates and nuclear inclusions in an affected woman. This relatively uncommon finding was most recently reported in four of 18 affected individuals in a large family [Miller et al 2009]. See Dilated Cardiomyopathy Overview.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Al-Obeidi et al [2018] reported that approximately 10% of individuals with IBMPFD had a previous diagnosis of ALS. Benatar et al [2013] conducted a systematic EMG characterization of 17 individuals with a diagnosis of IBMPFD from eight families and found that the EMG was abnormal in all individuals. The abnormality was purely neurogenic in four and mixed neurogenic/myopathic in seven individuals; thus, motor neuron involvement as characteristic of ALS was identified in 11/17 (65%) of the participants.
An earlier study by Johnson et al [2010] identified a pathogenic variant in VCP in five of 289 (1%-2%) cases of familial ALS. The parent of one proband died at age 58 years with dementia, parkinsonism, Paget disease, and upper-limb muscle weakness, findings that strongly suggested IBMPFD. In another individual with a pathogenic variant in VCP and diagnosis of ALS, neuropsychological testing performed within one year of symptom onset suggested mild frontal lobe dysfunction. The study findings widened the spectrum of clinical findings associated with IBMPFD to include ALS. See Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Overview.
Parkinson disease (PD). PD is now known to be a feature of IBMPFD. Spina et al [2013] reported affected individuals with PD, but complete details were lacking. Al-Obeidi et al [2018] reported an incidence of 3.8% of Parkinson disease in a cohort of 231 individuals. Individuals with PD in IBMPFD tend to have classic symptoms and respond well to standard treatment [Chan et al 2012]. More recently, Regensburger et al [2017] reported an individual with VCP-related multisystem proteinopathy presenting as early-onset PD.
Other phenotypic features including hepatic steatosis, cataracts, sensorimotor axonal neuropathy, pyramidal tract dysfunction, sphincter disturbance, and sensorineural hearing loss have been reported [Haubenberger et al 2005, Guyant-Maréchal et al 2006, Hübbers et al 2007, Djamshidian et al 2009, Miller et al 2009, Kumar et al 2010].
Neuropathology.
VCP-related IBMPFD represents a novel class of neurodegenerative diseases called TDP-43 proteinopathies. Neuropathologic findings associated with IBMPFD include ubiquitin-positive neuronal intranuclear inclusions, dystrophic neuritis, and rare intracytoplasmic inclusions. These findings are abundant in the neocortex, less robust in limbic and subcortical nuclei, and absent in the dentate gyrus [Forman et al 2006, Neumann et al 2007, van der Zee et al 2009].
IBMPFD associated with pathogenic variants in either HNRNPA2B1 or HNRNPA1 has similar neuropathologic findings.