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Abstract
Objective: To study whether the risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is increased in people with prior autoimmune disease.
Methods: An all-England hospital record-linkage dataset spanning 1999–2011 was used. Cohorts were constructed of people with each of a range of autoimmune diseases; the incidence of ALS in each disease cohort was compared with the incidence of ALS in a cohort of individuals without prior admission for the autoimmune disease.
Results: There were significantly more cases than expected of ALS associated with a prior diagnosis of asthma, celiac disease, younger-onset diabetes (younger than 30 years), multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, myxedema, polymyositis, Sjögren syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, and ulcerative colitis.
Conclusions: Autoimmune disease associations with ALS raise the possibility of shared genetic or environmental risk factors.
GLOSSARY
- ALS=
- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis;
- FTD=
- frontotemporal dementia;
- MMN=
- multifocal motor neuropathy;
- MS=
- multiple sclerosis;
- TDP-43=
- transactive response DNA-binding protein 43
Footnotes
Go to Neurology.org for full disclosures. Funding information and disclosures deemed relevant by the authors, if any, are provided at the end of the article.
- Received April 30, 2013.
- Accepted in final form July 3, 2013.
- © 2013 American Academy of Neurology
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- Autoimmune disease preceding amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
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