Survival of Alzheimer's disease patients in Korea.

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: The natural history of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has rarely been studied in the Korean population. Our study on survival analyses in Korean AD patients potentially provides a basis for cross-cultural comparisons.

METHODS: We studied 724 consecutive patients from a memory disorder clinic in a tertiary hospital in Seoul, who were diagnosed as having AD between April 1995 and December 2005. Deaths were identified by the Statistics Korea database. The Kaplan-Meier method was used for survival analysis, and a Cox proportional hazard model was used to assess factors related to patient survival.

RESULTS: The overall median survival from the onset of first symptoms and from the time of diagnosis was 12.6 years (95% confidence interval 11.7-13.4) and 9.3 years (95% confidence interval 8.7-9.9), respectively. The age of onset, male gender, history of diabetes mellitus, lower Mini-Mental State Examination score, and higher Clinical Dementia Rating score were negatively associated with survival. There was a reversal of risk of AD between early-onset and later-onset AD, 9.1 years after onset.

CONCLUSIONS: The results of our study show a different pattern of survival compared to those studies carried out with western AD populations. Mortality risk of early-onset AD varied depending on the duration of follow-up.