This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.
Abstract
Objective: To investigate a possible increase in incidence of ALS in Norway.
Methods: Death certificate data from all deaths in Norway in the period 1961 to 1994 for ALS, PD, and MG were obtained from Statistics Norway and related to population statistics. Data on ALS was obtained on sex, age, and place of death and compared with mortality data in PD and MG for the same period. Data were standardized using the 1990 population as standard population. Poisson regression was used to test for trends in mortality. The data from the death certificates were related to a clinical study performed on ALS in one of the counties during the same period.
Results: The annual mortality of ALS almost doubled during the period studied, rising from 1.38 to 2.54 per 100,000 inhabitants at the end of the study. The increased mortality appeared solely in the population older than 60 years of age, with a peak in mortality in the age group 80 to 84 years. The increase was larger in women than in men, and the ratio between the sexes was 1.32 (men–women, age-adjusted at the end of the study). The mortality in patients with PD showed a similar increase to that seen in ALS, whereas no increase in mortality was observed in patients with a diagnosis of MG. There were considerable differences in ALS mortality in different counties, but no clear regional trends were observed.
Conclusion: The authors report increasing ALS mortality. Although the increase in mortality is restricted to the population aged 65 years or older, it cannot be explained by increasing age of the general population alone.
- Received December 29, 1999.
- Accepted July 14, 2000.
AAN Members
We have changed the login procedure to improve access between AAN.com and the Neurology journals. If you are experiencing issues, please log out of AAN.com and clear history and cookies. (For instructions by browser, please click the instruction pages below). After clearing, choose preferred Journal and select login for AAN Members. You will be redirected to a login page where you can log in with your AAN ID number and password. When you are returned to the Journal, your name should appear at the top right of the page.
AAN Non-Member Subscribers
Purchase access
Letters: Rapid online correspondence
REQUIREMENTS
You must ensure that your Disclosures have been updated within the previous six months. Please go to our Submission Site to add or update your Disclosure information.
Your co-authors must send a completed Publishing Agreement Form to Neurology Staff (not necessary for the lead/corresponding author as the form below will suffice) before you upload your comment.
If you are responding to a comment that was written about an article you originally authored:
You (and co-authors) do not need to fill out forms or check disclosures as author forms are still valid
and apply to letter.
Submission specifications:
- Submissions must be < 200 words with < 5 references. Reference 1 must be the article on which you are commenting.
- Submissions should not have more than 5 authors. (Exception: original author replies can include all original authors of the article)
- Submit only on articles published within 6 months of issue date.
- Do not be redundant. Read any comments already posted on the article prior to submission.
- Submitted comments are subject to editing and editor review prior to posting.
