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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis among chamorro migrants from guam
Author(s) -
Garruto Ralph M.,
Gajdusek D. Carleton,
Chen KwangMing
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
annals of neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.764
H-Index - 296
eISSN - 1531-8249
pISSN - 0364-5134
DOI - 10.1002/ana.410080612
Subject(s) - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , residence , demography , population , incidence (geometry) , geography , medicine , disease , pathology , physics , sociology , optics
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which occurs in unusually high incidence among the Chamorro people on the island of Guam, has developed in 28 Chamorro migrants‐24 of whom had onset in the United States, Japan, Germany, or Korea‐‐after periods of absence from Guam of 1 to 34 years. Thus, the latency period for the disease, if caused by environmental factors on Guam, may be over three decades. Four further patients developed ALS within 1 to 14 years of their return to Guam after long‐term residence in the continental United States. The minimum exposure time to environmental variables on Guam, based on age at migration, was 18 years, and all patients had spent their childhood and adolescence on Guam. Estimates of crude mortality rates for ALS from these data are considerably higher than for the United States population, and lower than the ALS mortality rates for nonmigrant Chamorros on Guam.