The Relationship Between Bone Mineral Density and Cardiovascular Function in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy: A Retrospective Cohort Study

In this study, we explored the relationship between BMD and cardiovascular health, and observed no association between BMD and LVEF. The primary results were in the opposite direction than the hypothesized direction, with the model beta coefficient for BMD indicating a negative relationship with LVEF; however, the size of the effect BMD had on LVEF was very small and not statistically significant. The secondary linear regression analyses provided consistent results with the primary linear regression, indicating that the primary results are sensitive to a variety of slightly modified conditions. It is possible that the null finding between bone mineral density and LVEF may be partially explained by a higher proportion of the patients with low BMD receiving steroids. There is unequivocal evidence that glucocorticoids alter the natural history of DMD.9 In this particular dataset, there was not sufficient evidence to detect a statistically significant relationship between steroid use and LVEF; similarly, the association between BMD and LVEF remained null after controlling for steroid use. The strongest association reported, with the model explaining approximately 30% of the variance in LVEF, came from the third adjusted secondary analysis looking at change in LVEF as the outcome. Although the results were not statistically significant for BMD, this adjusted analysis reported the smallest p-value for BMD (0.1564) and the model F-statistic was statistically significant (p-value...
Source: PLOS Currents Muscular Dystrophy - Category: Neurology Authors: Source Type: research