Causes of death among United States decedents with ALS: An eye toward delaying mortality

Screenshot of the first two pages of Larson - Causes of death paper

Affiliates

Theodore C. Larson[1], Stephen A. Goutman[2], Bryn Davis[1], Frank J. Bove[3], Neil Thakur[4], Paul Mehta[1]

  1. Office of Innovation and Analytics, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
  2. Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
  3. Office of Community Health Hazard Assessment, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
  4. ALS Association, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.

Journal

Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology

Summary

This paper examines death certificates from all ALS deaths between 2011-2014 to identify multiple causes of death occurrences among patients with ALS. The study found causes of death in ALS decedents consistent with causes reported in other studies, namely respiratory failure, cardiovascular disease, and cardiac arrest. Due to the large sample size of the study, additional causes were detected that were previously not found, some of which could be preventable with interventions. The authors of the study hope that shedding light on these causes of deaths can help clinicians optimize patient care and design measures to combat preventable causes of death.

Link to paper

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