Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in Beijing: Epidemiologic features and prognosis from 2010 to 2015

Abstract

ObjectiveTo determine the incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in Beijing from 2010 to 2015 and to address the issue of prognosis.MethodsThe number of patients diagnosed with ALS was generated from two aspects, namely, diagnostic hospitals and assisted care institutions. By examining the consistency of the overlapping data in terms of age and gender distributions, the number of ALS patients in Beijing was estimated to analyze the incidence. Finally, a prognosis study was carried out by sorting the clinical data of deceased patients to associate time to death with the demographic characteristics, including gender, age at diagnosis, site of onset, body mass index, and lag from onset to diagnosis.ResultsThe average yearly incidence was 0.8/100,000 persons, the male–female ratio was 1.63:1, and the mean age at diagnosis was 54.11 years. The mean time from symptom onset to diagnosis was 14.8 months, and the median survival time from diagnosis was 49.4 months. In addition, each of the identified clinical features was related to the survival of the patients with ALS.ConclusionsThe incidence of ALS in Beijing is similar to the rates in Hong Kong and Taiwan but is lower than the rates in Europe and America. In addition, the mean age at onset of the patients in Beijing was early, and overall ALS prognosis appears to be comparable to those reported in recent publications.

Incidence and prevalence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in urban China: a national population-based study

“…This finding indicates that the incidence and prevalence are similar across countries in East Asia, and are independent of the Sociodemographic Index (SDI), consistent with the meta-analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 2. The prevalence of ALS in our study was comparable with the findings from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but the incidence seemed to be higher than in these two regions and than that reported in two studies in mainland China 5 8 10 11. Our large national sample size and standardised rate calculation methodology ensured relatively stable and new results10 11 28; these results indicated that the actual number of incident patients with ALS in Asia was still higher than that in Western populations given the large population.…”

“…The prevalence of ALS in our study was comparable with the findings from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but the incidence seemed to be higher than in these two regions and than that reported in two studies in mainland China 5 8 10 11. Our large national sample size and standardised rate calculation methodology ensured relatively stable and new results10 11 28; these results indicated that the actual number of incident patients with ALS in Asia was still higher than that in Western populations given the large population. In addition, men were more likely to have ALS than females, with a 1.4-fold increased risk, a finding consistent with previous studies in Asian and other races 1 7 29–31…”

“…Both rates, especially the incidence rate, were much lower in Hong Kong and Taiwan than in Japan and South Korea 1 2. For mainland China, only two hospital-based studies have been performed 10 11. These existing studies were limited to only a single city, or calculated the rates with a rough capture–recapture method, or used inconsistent definitions of ALS 10 11.…”

“…For mainland China, only two hospital-based studies have been performed 10 11. These existing studies were limited to only a single city, or calculated the rates with a rough capture–recapture method, or used inconsistent definitions of ALS 10 11. In addition, no further epidemiological studies are available to estimate the rates among different sexes, age groups and geographical regions in mainland China, which is of importance to inform policy making with respect to ALS management in China.…”

The relationship between selected sociodemographic factors and speech organ dysfunction in sporadic ALS patients

“…The men to women ratio in the study sample was 1.4, and the ratio described in the literature is 1-2 [19][20][21]. The mean age of ALS onset was 53.61 years (while the average is 51-66 years) [18,[21][22][23][24], and 68% of the patients had spinal disorders (literature average 58-82%) [25][26][27]. Such a distribution in a relatively large group of patients allows drawing conclusions and transposing them to the general population of ALS patients.…”