Characteristics of patients and controls in the blood sample study population
| Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (n=303) | Female controls (n=1700)† | Male controls (n=400)‡ | |
| Median age*, years (range) | 64 (24 to 85) | 57 (50 to 70) | 61 (40 to 80) |
| Female, n (%) | 131 (43) | 1700 (100) | 0 (0) |
| Site at onset, n (%) | |||
| Bulbar | 90 (30) | ||
| Spinal | |||
| Cervical | 98 (33) | ||
| Thoracal | 7 (2) | ||
| Lumbosacral | 100 (33) | ||
| Multiple regions | 4 (1) | ||
↵* Age at diagnosis was used in the multivariate analysis.
↵† Female controls were derived from the Prospect-EPIC (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and nutrition) study (Boker, 2001).
↵‡ Male controls were derived from the Hormonal changes in the Ageing MaLe and Epidemiological Taskforce (HAMLET) study (Aleman et al17; Muller et al16).
All patients fulfilled the El Escorial criteria for probable and definite amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.