Abstract
Congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDG) are rare diseases with variable phenotypes and severity. Immunological involvement remains a largely uncharted topic in CDG, mainly due to lack of robust data. To better characterize immune-related manifestations' prevalence, relevance, and quality-of-life (QoL) impact, we developed electronic questionnaires targeting (1) CDG patients and (2) the general "healthy" population. Two-hundred and nine CDG patients/caregivers and 349 healthy participants were included in this study. PMM2-CDG was the most represented CDG (n= 122/209). About half of these participants (n= 65/122) described relevant infections with a noteworthy prevalence of those affecting the gastrointestinal tract (GI) (63.1%,n= 41/65). Infection burden and QoL impact were shown as infections correlated with more severe clinical phenotypes and with a set of relevant non-immune PMM2-CDG signs. Autoimmune diseases had only a marginal presence in PMM2-CDG (2.5%,n= 3/122), all being GI-related. Allergy prevalence was also low in PMM2-CDG (33%,n= 41/122) except for food allergies (26.8%,n= 11/41, of PMM2-CDG and 10.8%,n= 17/158, of controls). High vaccination compliance with greater perceived ineffectiveness (28.3%,n= 17/60) and more severe adverse reactions were described in PMM2-CDG. This people-centric approach not only confirmed literature findings, but created new insights into immunological involvement in CDG, namely by highlighting the possible link between the immune and GI systems in PMM2-CDG. Finally, our results emphasized the importance of patient/caregiver knowledge and raised several red flags about immunological management.