Lawrence Korngut

Lawrence Korngut
The University of Calgary · Department of Clinical Neurosciences

MD MSc FRCPC CSCN(EMG)

About

131
Publications
27,634
Reads
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3,264
Citations
Introduction
Neurologist, Electrophysiologist, Clinical Trialist, Calgary Neuromuscular Clinic Director, Calgary Neuromuscular Program Chair, Canadian Neuromuscular Diseases Network National Principal Investigator, Canadian Neuromuscular Disease Registry Former Chair of Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee, Muscular Dystrophy Canada Director, Calgary ALS and Motor Neuron Disease Clinic
Additional affiliations
August 2009 - September 2015
The University of Calgary
Position
  • Research Assistant
August 2007 - June 2009
The University of Calgary
Position
  • Neuromuscular Fellow
Description
  • Completed a two year neuromuscular disease clinical and basic research fellowship. My research focused on heat shock protein 27 as a protective factor against progression of diabetic polyneuropathy in a mouse model.
July 2002 - June 2007
The University of Western Ontario
Position
  • Neurology Resident

Publications

Publications (131)
Article
Introduction/Aims Females with generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG) report lower quality of life (QoL) and have more severe disease than males. Sex differences in disease characteristics exist, however whether there are sex differences in the treatment of gMG that may contribute to QoL disparities is unknown. Our objective is to determine whether th...
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Objective The corticospinal tract (CST) reveals progressive microstructural alterations in ALS measurable by DTI. The aim of this study was to evaluate fractional anisotropy (FA) along the CST as a longitudinal marker of disease progression in ALS. Methods The study cohort consisted of 114 patients with ALS and 110 healthy controls from the second...
Article
Background: LC-FAOD may be missed in neuromuscular (NM) clinics due to its rarity and absence from common NM genetic panels. The Canadian Neuromuscular Disease Registry (CNDR) collects real-world patient data and includes a network of clinician-investigators. Our objective was to inform future registry work by evaluating diagnosis pathways for LC-F...
Article
Background: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) causes progressive muscle wasting. The Canadian Neuromuscular Disease Registry (CNDR) previously developed a comprehensive DMD dataset in accordance with the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF). Our objective was to develop a brief ICF core set that best aligns with...
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This study aimed to investigate the clinical stratification of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients in relation to in vivo cerebral degeneration. One hundred forty-nine ALS patients and one hundred forty-four healthy controls (HCs) were recruited from the Canadian ALS Neuroimaging Consortium (CALSNIC). Texture analysis was performed on T1-w...
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Objectives Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a leading genetic cause of infant death and represents a significant burden of care. An improved understanding of the epidemiology of SMA in Canada may help inform strategies to improve the standard of care for individuals living with SMA. Methods We employed a multisource approach to estimate the minima...
Article
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor neuron degeneration. Significant research has begun to establish brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a potential biomarker to diagnose and monitor the state of the disease. Deep learning has emerged as a prominent class of machine learning algor...
Preprint
Full-text available
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder involving motor neuron degeneration. Significant research has begun to establish brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a potential biomarker to diagnose and monitor the state of the disease. Deep learning has turned into a prominent class of machine learning programs in...
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Objective To identify structural and neurochemical properties that underlie functional connectivity impairments of the primary motor cortex (PMC) and how these relate to clinical findings in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Methods 52 patients with ALS and 52 healthy controls, matched for age and sex, were enrolled from 5 centres across Canada...
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Although speech declines rapidly in some individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), longitudinal changes in speech have rarely been characterized. The study objectives were to model the rate of decline in speaking rate and speech intelligibility as a function of disease onset site, sex, and age at onset in 166 individuals with ALS; and e...
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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a multisystem neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive degeneration of upper motor neurons and lower motor neurons, and frontotemporal regions resulting in impaired bulbar, limb, and cognitive function. Magnetic resonance imaging studies have reported cortical and subcortical brain involvement i...
Article
Introduction/aims: Consensus criteria to formalize the diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and refine clinical trial populations have evolved. The recently proposed Gold Coast consensus criteria are intended to simplify use and increase sensitivity. We aimed to evaluate the potential impact of those criteria on clinical trial eligibil...
Article
Background: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the leading genetic cause of infant death and the second most common autosomal recessive disorder; most cases are due to homozygous deletion of SMN1 gene. Methods: This study uses the Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program to determine the minimum annual incidence of 5q-SMA from birth to 18 years of ag...
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Introduction/aims: Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is a slowly progressive muscular dystrophy without approved therapies. In this study we evaluated whether locally acting ACE-083 could safely increase muscle volume and improve functional outcomes in adults with FSHD. Methods: Participants were at least 18 years old and had FSHD1/F...
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Objective: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a multi-system disorder characterized primarily by motor neuron degeneration, but may be accompanied by cognitive dysfunction. Statistically appropriate criteria for establishing cognitive impairment (CI) in ALS are lacking. We evaluate quantile regression (QR), that accounts for age and education,...
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Progressive cerebral degeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) remains poorly understood. Here, three-dimensional (3D) texture analysis was used to study longitudinal gray and white matter cerebral degeneration in ALS from routine T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Participants were included from the Canadian ALS Neuroimaging C...
Article
Background: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the leading genetic cause of infant death and the second most common autosomal recessive disorder; the majority of cases are due to homozygous deletion of SMN1 gene. Methods: This study uses the Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program to determine the minimum annual incidence of 5q-SMA from birth to 18...
Article
Background There is an urgent unmet need for new therapies in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In a clinical study with healthy volunteers, levosimendan, a calcium sensitiser, was shown to improve neuromechanical efficiency and contractile function of the human diaphragm. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of oral levosimendan in people wit...
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Background: Evidence to guide treatment of pediatric medium-chain acyl-coenzyme A dehydrogenase (MCAD) deficiency and phenylketonuria (PKU) is fragmented because of large variability in outcome selection and measurement. Our goal was to develop core outcome sets (COSs) for these diseases to facilitate meaningful future evidence generation and enha...
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Objective Spinobulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA) is an X-linked adult-onset neuromuscular disorder that causes progressive weakness and androgen insensitivity in hemizygous males. This condition is reported to be extremely rare, but has higher prevalence in certain populations due to multiple founder effects. Anecdotal observations of a higher prevale...
Article
OBJECTIVE To evaluate progressive cerebral degeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by assessing alterations in N -acetylaspartate (NAA) ratios in the motor and prefrontal cortex within clinical subgroups of ALS. METHODS Seventy-six ALS patients and 59 healthy controls were enrolled in a prospective, longitudinal, multicenter study in t...
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Cognitive impairment is now recognized in a subset of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The objective of the study was to identify group differences and neuroanatomical correlates of the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen (ECAS) in participants ALS. Fifty-three ALS patients and 43 healthy controls recruited as a part of...
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Background: Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a rare disease that affects 1 in 11 000 live births. Recent developments in SMA treatments have included new disease-modifying therapies that require high quality data to inform decisions around initiation and continuation of therapy. In Canada, there are no nationally agreed upon outcome measures (OM)...
Preprint
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Importance Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a multi-system disorder characterized primarily by motor neuron degeneration, but may be accompanied by cognitive dysfunction. Statistically appropriate criteria for establishing cognitive impairment (CI) in ALS are lacking. Objective Define thresholds for CI in ALS using quantile regression (QR) t...
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Background Wild-type transthyretin amyloidosis (wtATTR) is an important cause of heart failure (HF); however, the prevalence and clinical significance of neurologic complications remains uncertain. Methods This analysis reports findings from a single-centre experience of routine neuropathy screening at the time of wtATTR diagnosis by nerve conduct...
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Background: Inherited metabolic diseases (IMDs) are a group of individually rare single-gene diseases. For many IMDs, there is a paucity of high-quality evidence that evaluates the effectiveness of clinical interventions. Clinical effectiveness trials of IMD interventions could be supported through the development of core outcome sets (COSs), a re...
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Objective: To evaluate safety, dose response, and preliminary efficacy of reldesemtiv over 12 weeks in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Methods: Patients (≤2 years since diagnosis) with slow upright vital capacity (SVC) of ≥60% were randomized 1:1:1:1 to reldesemtiv 150, 300, or 450 mg twice daily (bid) or placebo; active treatme...
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We report the recruitment activities and outcomes of a multi-disease neuromuscular patient registry in Canada. The Canadian Neuromuscular Disease Registry (CNDR) registers individuals across Canada with a confirmed diagnosis of a neuromuscular disease. Diagnosis and contact information are collected across all diseases and detailed prospective data...
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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized primarily by motor neuron but also frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Although the cerebellum is involved in both motor and cognitive functions, little is known of its role in ALS. We targeted the dentate nucleus (DN) in the cerebellum and the associated white matter fibers tracts connecting the...
Article
Response to provincial governments’ decisions regarding monitoring for adults with Spinal Muscular Atrophy - Victoria L Hodgkinson, Kristine Chapman, Aaron Izenberg, Hanns Lochmüller, Colleen O’Connell, Erin K O’Ferrall, Maryam Oskoui, Gerald Pfeffer, Stephanie Plamondon, Xavier Rodrigue, Christen Shoesmith, Jodi Warman-Chardon, Bernard Brais, Lawr...
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Background Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a disabling and rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disorder. Increasing age is an important risk factor for developing ALS, thus the societal impact of this devastating disease will become more profound as the population ages. A significant hurdle to finding effective treatment has been an inabil...
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Objective To evaluate progressive white matter (WM) degeneration in ALS. Methods Sixty-six patients with ALS and 43 healthy controls were enrolled in a prospective, longitudinal, multicentre study in the Canadian ALS Neuroimaging Consortium (CALSNIC). Participants underwent a harmonized neuroimaging protocol across 4 centres including diffusion te...
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Background: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a devastating rare disease that affects individuals regardless of ethnicity, gender, and age. The first-approved disease-modifying therapy for SMA, nusinursen, was approved by Health Canada, as well as by American and European regulatory agencies following positive clinical trial outcomes. The trials we...
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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a preferential involvement of both upper and lower motor neurons. Evidence from neuroimaging and post-mortem studies confirms additional involvement of brain regions extending beyond the motor cortex. The aim of this study was to assess the extent of cerebral disease in a...
Poster
Background: ACE-083 is a locally acting muscle therapeutic based on follistatin that binds myostatin and other muscle regulators. ACE-083 has been shown to increase muscle mass of injected muscles in animal models, healthy subjects, and patients with FSHD or Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease. Objectives/Methods: The primary objectives were to dete...
Preprint
Full-text available
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a preferential involvement of both upper and lower motor neurons. Evidence from neuroimaging and post-mortem studies confirms additional involvement of brain regions extending beyond the motor cortex. The aim of this study was to assess the extent of cerebral diseas...
Article
Objective: The use of speech measures is becoming a common practice in the assessment of bulbar disease progression in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This study aimed to establish psychometric properties (e.g. reliability, validity, sensitivity, specificity) of speech and pause timing measures during a standardized passage. Methods: A large n...
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The original version of this article [1] unfortunately included an error to an author’s name. Author Jordi Díaz-Manera was erroneously presented as Jorge Alberto Diaz Manera. The correct author name has been included in the author list of this Correction article.
Article
Gradient-based texture analysis methods have become popular in computer vision and image processing and has many applications including medical image analysis. This motivates us to develop a texture feature extraction method to discriminate Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients from controls. But, the lack of data in ALS research is a major...
Article
Background: We investigated cerebral degeneration and neurochemistry in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Methods: We prospectively studied 65 patients and 43 age-matched healthy controls. Participants were recruited from 4 centers as part of a study in the Canadian ALS Neuroimaging Co...
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Hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSPs) are a diverse group of genetic conditions with variable severity and onset age. From a neurogenetic clinic, we identified 14 patients with very late-onset HSP, with symptoms starting after the age of 35. In this cohort, sequencing of known genetic causes was performed using clinically available HSP sequencing p...
Article
Registries are an important platform to which persons with dementia and other cognitive impairments can contribute to research studies. Registries also provide an opportunity for patients to stay informed about current studies. Engaging patients in registry development can increase sustainability of a registry and patient retention in clinical regi...
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Background: Myotonic Dystrophy is the most common form of muscular dystrophy in adults, affecting an estimated 10 per 100,000 people. It is a multisystemic disorder affecting multiple generations with increasing severity. There are currently no licenced therapies to reverse, slow down or cure its symptoms. In 2009 TREAT-NMD (a global alliance with...
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Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive motor neuron disease resulting in muscle weakness, dysarthria and dysphagia, and ultimately respiratory failure leading to death. Half of the ALS patients survive less than 3 years, and 80% of the patients survive less than 5 years. Riluzole is the only approved medication in Canada...
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Response to the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health and Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux decision regarding nusinersen for Spinal Muscular Atrophy - Craig Campbell, Kathy Selby, Hugh McMillan, Jiri Vajsar, Lawrence Korngut, Bernard Brais, Alex MacKenzie, Maryam Oskoui
Poster
Background: Hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) is a group of genetic diseases that cause progressive degeneration of the corticospinal tract. Historically, this disease was divided into two types:the classic subtype, with leg weakness and hypertonic bladder, and the complicated subtype, with features such as cerebellar ataxia or optic atrophy.Muta...
Article
Background: Serological testing is routinely performed in the work up for a diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) to exclude pathologies with similar clinical phenotypes. Objective: To determine the proportion of serological workup that changes the primary diagnosis and/or clinical management for patients presenting with signs of ALS....
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Background: Inherited metabolic diseases (IMD) are a large group of rare single-gene disorders that are typically diagnosed early in life. There are important evidence gaps related to the comparative effectiveness of therapies for IMD, which are in part due to challenges in conducting randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for rare diseases. Registry...
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Introduction Patient registries serve an important role in rare disease research, particularly for the recruitment and planning of clinical trials. The Canadian Neuromuscular Disease Registry was established with the primary objective of improving the future for neuromuscular (NM) patients through the enablement and support of research into potenti...
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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rapidly progressing, fatal disorder with no effective treatment. We used simple genetic models of ALS to screen phenotypically for potential therapeutic compounds. We screened libraries of compounds in C. elegans, validated hits in zebrafish, and tested the most potent molecule in mice and in a small clinica...
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Background: Recent short-term clinical trials in patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) have indicated greater disease variability in terms of progression than expected. In addition, as average life-expectancy increases, reliable data is required on clinical progression in the older DMD population. Objective: To determine the effects of...
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Objective Involvement of the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been reported and is increasingly recognized as an important pathophysiological aspect. The relationship between decrement and clinical measures for possible application as a biomarker has not been comprehensively explored. Methods We performed rou...
Article
Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease of the neuromuscular junction, characterized by fatigable weakness of the extraocular, bulbar, and limb musculature; prevalence is estimated at 14 to 32 per 100,000 in North America. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common type of leukemia in adults, resulting from clonal expansion of B-...