title: Clinical features of amyotrophic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
abstract: The clinical features and course of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are discussed. The data on a series of 116 patients are compared with those of the literature. The following points emerge: 1) when the disease starts before the age of 50, the prognosis is often less poor than usual; 2) the forms with spinal, and especially cervical, onset appear to be less rapid than bulbar forms; 3) in 20% of the patients survival is over 5 years. There may be some unknown factor that increases the resistance of some subject to the disease.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000401:mortality; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis