Epidemiology of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Population-Based Study in Israel

Abstract

Background: Globally, the annual incidence and prevalence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are estimated at 1.9 and 4.5 per 100,000 population, respectively. This study is aimed at describing the epidemiology of ALS in Israel in a real-world setting. Methods: A retrospective study was performed using the databases of Maccabi Healthcare Services (MHS), a 2-million-member health maintenance organization in Israel. The study included all MHS adults diagnosed with ALS between 1997 and 2013. In 2013, characteristics of ALS patients were compared to those of age-sex-matched patients without ALS. Survival after ALS diagnosis was assessed until death and until tracheostomy or death (follow-up through 2014). Results: In 2013 (n = 158), the prevalence of ALS was 8.1 per 100,000 population in MHS. In 1997-2013, a total of 375 ALS patients were diagnosed, corresponding to an average annual incidence of 1.8 per 100,000 population in MHS. The median survival from diagnosis to death was 3.5 years (95% CI 2.9-4.1), with approximately 28% surviving at least 10 years. Median tracheostomy-free survival was 2.5 years (95% CI 2.1-2.9). Conclusions: Results suggest that there is a relatively high prevalence of ALS in Israel. Further research is needed to investigate factors that may contribute to the survival of patients with ALS in Israel.

Using the Capture-Recapture Method to Estimate the Incidence of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in Beijing, China

“…The male to female ratio was 1.63: 1, highly consistent with that of many previous studies [19, 20]. It is argued that possible protective hormonal factors in women may be related to this observed rate [18].…”

A Retrospective Study of the Clinical Phenotype and Predictors of Survival in non-Caucasian Hispanic Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

“…This discrepancy may reflect differences in the proportion of individuals with indigenous ethnic background between both regions of our country. Secondly, we also found a higher incidence of ALS in women, and an increased percentage of bulbar ALS cases, which differs from most of previous reports [4,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Meanwhile, the proportion of familial ALS in our population was about 5%, as described in the global literature (4).…”

A Retrospective Study of the Clinical Phenotype and Predictors of Survival in non-Caucasian Hispanic Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

“…Notably, we found certain particularities in the phenotype of our population compared to what it is described in the literature. Firstly, the mean age at disease onset in the current study was lower than reported in Caucasian series from Europe (4,14-18), Japan (19), and Israel (20), but it coincides with values observed in the United States (21), Brazil (22), and Uruguay (11). Nonetheless, a previous investigation performed in the northern region of Mexico showed that the mean age at disease onset was around 47 years (13), much lower than observed in the current study.…”