Clinical characteristics in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis with Sub-Saharan Africa ancestry – A Portuguese hospital-based cohort study

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rapidly progressive condition characterized by upper and lower motor neuron loss [1]. Over the last decades, epidemiological and clinical data from European, North America and high-incoming Asia-Pacific countries has been extensively collected and analyzed, improving the knowledge regarding ALS [2], [3]. However, ALS had not been reported in Africans until 1955 [4]. Even today, data from Africa is scarce. A systematic review on ALS in African patients identified common features when compared with Western ones: a higher male predominance, more frequent younger onset [5]. Other clinical aspects, including cognition, prognosis, genetic, and survival are still a matter of debate. Moreover, there are significant differences between African and Western societies, concerning not only genetic background and environmental factors, but also access to health care system and proper treatments, which particularly may influence survival.

This report aims to characterize an ALS cohort with Sub-Saharan Africa (SA) origin but diagnosed and followed in a Portuguese ALS Centre.

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