Autoimmune disease preceding amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: an epidemiologic study.
OBJECTIVE
To study whether the risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is increased in people with prior autoimmune disease.


METHODS
An all-England hospital record-linkage dataset spanning 1999-2011 was used. Cohorts were constructed of people with each of a range of autoimmune diseases; the incidence of ALS in each disease cohort was compared with the incidence of ALS in a cohort of individuals without prior admission for the autoimmune disease.


RESULTS
There were significantly more cases than expected of ALS associated with a prior diagnosis of asthma, celiac disease, younger-onset diabetes (younger than 30 years), multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, myxedema, polymyositis, Sjögren syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, and ulcerative colitis.


CONCLUSIONS
Autoimmune disease associations with ALS raise the possibility of shared genetic or environmental risk factors.
From the Oxford University Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences (M.R.T., K.T.), John Radcliffe Hospital; Oxford University Unit of Health-Care Epidemiology (R.G., M.J.G.), Department of Public Health; and Oxford University Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (S.R.), Oxford, UK.
Martin R
MR
Turner
Raph
R
Goldacre
Sreeram
S
Ramagopalan
Kevin
K
Talbot
Michael J
MJ
Goldacre
D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D015897:Comorbidity; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006753:Hospital Records; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D012306:Risk