Values of different diagnosis criteria for predicting the prognosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Abstract

To evaluate the value of different diagnosis criteria for predicting the prognosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Between January 2011 and December 2012, all patients with a diagnosis of ALS referred to and assessed at Peking University Third Hospital (PUTH) were screened. Baseline demographic details and clinical data were collected from the patient's first visit to PUTH. According to the Airlie House and Awaji-shima criteria, the levels of diagnostic certainty were categorized. The follow-up period was 24 months. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were made to compare the efficiency of the two ALS-criteria. According to the Airlie House and Awaji-shima criteria, there was no difference in the outcome event rate among the different levels of diagnostic certainty (P>0.05). Among the sub-group with diagnostic delay time <12 months, the outcome event rate of high diagnostic level patients was higher than that of low diagnostic level patients (χ² =43.283, P<0.05). For the non-bulbar onset patients whose diagnostic delay time was under 12 months, the areas under the ROC curves of the Airlie House to predict the prognosis of ALS was 0.603, which was significantly higher than the baseline area of 0.500 (P<0.05). The Airlie House criteria can predict the prognosis of non-bulbar onset ALS whose diagnostic delay time were under 12 months.