Raymond.L
New member
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2015
- Messages
- 2
- Reason
- Learn about ALS
- Country
- CA
- State
- Alberta
- City
- Calgary
Hello everyone. I’ve been here for sometime and seen quite much anxiety over ALS from people in this forum (including me). Actually the incidence of this disease is very low. It is only around 2 or 3 or 4 in 100000 persons every year. The highest odds I ever saw was 10 in 100000 persons annually. I only saw this number once from a web page which I couldn’t find now. But there is another medical term called lifetime risk.
I don’t know how this term comes from but it is really said that an individual’s lifetime risk of developing ALS is around 1 to 1000. Like the incidence this odds also drifts vastly in different sources as far as I’ve read from the lowest 1/2000 to the highest 1/300 (which is truly not low).
How come is this number? Is it really reasonable? I thought it might be the product of the annual incidence and the average lifetime in years of an individual. But this doesn’t make sense. When calculating the annual incidence the denominator (or sample) is different every year because every year there are many people added into and leaving the sample for all kinds of reasons, which can make the annual incidence for every year irrelevant from each other. Let’s say the flu affects 20% of all the population of a country every year. Does it mean that the odds of one in this country getting flu during five years is 100%? So it’s confusing me now. Could someone knowing this please give an answer?
PS. Apologies for the English but I tried hard. Hopefully you understand what I’m saying. Thank you so much.
I don’t know how this term comes from but it is really said that an individual’s lifetime risk of developing ALS is around 1 to 1000. Like the incidence this odds also drifts vastly in different sources as far as I’ve read from the lowest 1/2000 to the highest 1/300 (which is truly not low).
How come is this number? Is it really reasonable? I thought it might be the product of the annual incidence and the average lifetime in years of an individual. But this doesn’t make sense. When calculating the annual incidence the denominator (or sample) is different every year because every year there are many people added into and leaving the sample for all kinds of reasons, which can make the annual incidence for every year irrelevant from each other. Let’s say the flu affects 20% of all the population of a country every year. Does it mean that the odds of one in this country getting flu during five years is 100%? So it’s confusing me now. Could someone knowing this please give an answer?
PS. Apologies for the English but I tried hard. Hopefully you understand what I’m saying. Thank you so much.