Characterization of Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis attending the Muscular Dystrophy Association-Supported Clinics in Puerto Rico.

CONCLUSION: This study characterized a sample of ALS patients in Puerto Rico who are receiving services at the MDA-sponsored clinics. Puerto Rican patients have similarities with published data from the United States and other countries, including: sporadic pattern, initial symptoms in extremities, and time to diagnosis. Major differences are that the disease was more common in women than in men and that a higher than expected percentage of patients presented with bulbar onset. This may partly account for the overall predominance of the disease in women over men as found in our study, since the bulbar presentation has been reported to be more common in women. Studies with a greater number of patients are needed to determine whether our findings are reproducible. This study will serve as a basis for designing future analytic studies regarding etiology or the factors that might modulate disease progression. PMID: 29547678 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Tags: P R Health Sci J Source Type: research