Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Mortality in the United States, 2011-2013 (P5.087)
Citation Manager Formats
Make Comment
See Comments

Abstract
Objective: To determine mortality rates for ALS in the United States, 2011-2013, using International Classification of Disease, 10th Revision (ICD-10), code G12.2, Motor Neuron Disease (MND), and excluding deaths from causes other than ALS. Background: Unlike the 9th Revision, ICD-10 does not include a code specific for ALS. In addition, other non-MND conditions (e.g., supranuclear palsy) were assigned to G12.2. Past mortality studies have reported rates for G12.2 without excluding those that were not ALS which leads to inflated mortality rates. This analysis focuses only on the mortality for ALS. Methods: Mortality data for ALS were obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, for the period 2011-2013. Text strings for multiple-cause-of death were reviewed for all deaths with a code of G12.2. Deaths without ALS listed in one of the multiple-cause of death fields were excluded. ALS death rates per 100,000 persons were age-adjusted to the 2000 US standard population. Results: Approximately 21[percnt] of ICD-10 code G12.2 deaths in each year were not ALS, the majority being supranuclear palsy. There were 18,036 ALS deaths in the US during 2011-2013, mostly white (n=16,487; 91[percnt]) and male (n=10,065; 56[percnt]). The overall death rate was 1.7 per 100,000 persons (95[percnt] CI 1.7, 1.7). The death rate for males was 2.1 per 100,000 persons (95[percnt] CI 2.0, 2.1) and for females was 1.4 per 100,000 persons (95[percnt] CI 1.4, 1.4). Conclusions: Previous reports of ALS mortality in the U.S., showed similar age, sex, and race distributions. However, other reports showed slightly greater age-adjusted mortality rates due to the inclusion of other diseases in the case definition. Until there is a specific ICD-10 code for ALS, an additional review of multiple-cause of death data is required to give an accurate estimate of ALS deaths in the United States.
Disclosure: Dr. Larson has nothing to disclose. Dr. Kaye has received personal compensation for activities with McKing Consulting Corporation as an employee. Dr. Mehta has nothing to disclose. Dr. Horton has nothing to disclose.
Wednesday, April 20 2016, 8:30 am-7:00 pm
- Copyright © 2016 by AAN Enterprises, Inc.
Disputes & Debates: Rapid online correspondence
REQUIREMENTS
If you are uploading a letter concerning an article:
You must have updated your disclosures within six months: http://submit.neurology.org
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.
You May Also be Interested in
Related Articles
- No related articles found.