Survival and multidisciplinary amyotrophic lateral sclerosis clinic care at a United States Veterans Affairs medical center

Abstract

Introduction/Aims: The purpose of this work was to investigate survival outcomes in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at our Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center multidisciplinary ALS clinic and compare this to relevant data from several European studies. Methods: Our sample consisted of 56 total Veterans (n=56; 54 males, 2 females) that had been seen between June 24, 2013 and February 1, 2021 at our multidisciplinary ALS clinic. Results: The median survival time of our Veterans from symptom onset was 40.96 months (95% CI of 32.17, 76.07), and the median survival time from diagnosis was 23.77 months (95% CI of 18.64, 38.58). This was consistent with the literature. Further consistent with the literature is that multidisciplinary clinics, including ours, have survival advantage over general neurology clinics. Analyzing factors that contributed to this survival, we found significant protective effect on survival from Edaravone use (HR = 0.32, p = 0.036). Otherwise, there was no significant effect on survival noted from use of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG), non-invasive ventilation (NIV), or Riluzole. Conclusion: We found no significant difference in survival rates between our U.S. Veterans in our multidisciplinary ALS clinic and European multidisciplinary ALS clinics, and both are better than general neurology clinics. We also found that Edaravone use may provide some benefit to survival in this patient population.