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Journal article

The benefit of evolving multidisciplinary care in ALS: a diagnostic cohort survival comparison

Abstract:

Background Care for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has altered at the King’s College Hospital over the last 20 years. The clinic has been a multidisciplinary, specialist, tertiary referral centre since 1995 with a large team with integrated palliative and respiratory care since 2006. We hypothesized that these changes would improve survival.

Methods In this retrospective observational study, patients diagnosed with El Escorial definite, probable and possible ALS between 1995-1998 and 2008-2011 were followed up. The primary outcome measure was a chi-squared test for the proportion of each cohort surviving. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox multivariate regression were secondary analyses.

Results There was low reporting of some interventions. 547 people were included. Survival between the cohorts was significantly different (p = 0.022) with a higher proportion surviving during 2008-2011. Survival time was 21.6 (95% CI 19.2- 24.0) months in the 2008-2011 cohort compared to the 19.2 (15.6- 21.6) in the 1995-1998 cohort (log rank p = 0.018). 493 cases were included in the Cox regression. Diagnostic cohort was a significant predictor variable (HR 0.79 (0.64-0.97) p = 0.023).

Conclusions These results support the hypothesis that integrated specialist clinics, with multidisciplinary input improve survival in ALS.

Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Publisher copy:
10.1080/21678421.2017.1349151

Authors




Publisher:
Taylor and Francis
Journal:
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration More from this journal
Volume:
18
Issue:
7-8
Pages:
569-575
Publication date:
2017-07-18
Acceptance date:
2017-06-20
DOI:
EISSN:
2167-9223
ISSN:
2167-8421


Keywords:
Pubs id:
pubs:702103
UUID:
uuid:cb93062f-1540-4fc0-be68-cb7aebeb47f7
Local pid:
pubs:702103
Source identifiers:
702103
Deposit date:
2017-06-29

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