Toshio Shimizu, Utako Nagaoka, Yuki Nakayama, Akihiro Kawata, Chiharu Kugimoto, Yoshiyuki Kuroiwa, Mitsuru Kawai, Takayoshi Shimohata, Masatoyo Nishizawa, Ban Mihara, Hajime Arahata, Naoki Fujii, Reiko Namba, Hiroaki Ito, Takashi Imai, Keigo Nobukuni, Kiyohiko Kondo, Mieko Ogino, Takashi Nakajima, Tetsuo Komori
Malnutrition in the early stage has been reported as an independent predictor of survival in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We analyzed retrospectively the effect of variation of body mass index (BMI) on survival in ALS patients. In total, 77 consecutive ALS patients were enrolled from nine hospitals in Japan. Reduction rate of BMI was calculated from BMI before the disease onset and at the time of the first visit to each hospital. We analyzed the correlation between BMI reduction rate and total disease duration...
June 2012: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis