Article Text
Abstract
Huntington’s disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disease characterised by neuropsychiatric symptoms, a movement disorder (most commonly choreiform) and progressive cognitive impairment. The diagnosis is usually confirmed through identification of an increased CAG repeat length in the huntingtin gene in a patient with clinical features of the condition. Though diagnosis is usually straightforward, unusual presentations can occur, and it can be difficult to know when someone has transitioned from being an asymptomatic carrier into the disease state. This has become increasingly important recently, with several putative disease-modifying therapies entering trials. A growing number of conditions can mimic HD, including rare genetic causes, which must be considered in the event of a negative HD genetic test. Patients are best managed in specialist multidisciplinary clinics, including when considering genetic testing. Current treatments are symptomatic, and largely directed at the chorea and neurobehavioural problems, although supporting trial evidence for these is often limited.
- genetics
- huntington-s
- movement disorders
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Contributors TBS wrote the first draft of the review. SLM, JCG, STH, HS and RAB reviewed and revised the manuscript.
Funding The authors acknowledge financial support from the following organisations: Huntington’s Disease Association, National Institute for Health Research (NF-SI-0616-10011), NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20014).
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned. Externally peer reviewed by Anne Rosser, Cardiff, UK.
Other content recommended for you
- Huntington’s disease
- The differential diagnosis of chorea
- Prevalence of adult Huntington's disease in the UK based on diagnoses recorded in general practice records
- Diagnostic genetic testing for Huntington's disease
- Juvenile Huntington's disease: a population-based study using the General Practice Research Database
- Chorea and related disorders
- Incidence and mutation rates of Huntington’s disease in Spain: experience of 9 years of direct genetic testing
- Late-onset Huntington disease with intermediate CAG repeats: true or false?
- The differential diagnosis of Huntington's disease-like syndromes: ‘red flags’ for the clinician
- New problems in testing for Huntington's disease: the issue of intermediate and reduced penetrance alleles