Background and aim:

There is no study on the use of riluzol in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in Costa Rica. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of riluzole on clinical evolution and survival of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis treated at the National Pain Control and Palliative Care Center.

Materials and methods:

An analytical, observational and retrospective study based on the records of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis treated at the National Pain Control and Palliative Care Center between January 2009 and May 2014. The statistical analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel and SPSS version 18. Kaplan - Meier estimates were used for the analysis of survival estimates and a survival analysis was performed using a multivariate Cox regression.

Results:

We analyzed 235 medical records of patients diagnosed with ALS being controlled at the National Pain Control and Palliative Care Center, of which 142 (60%) were treated with riluzole and 93 (40%) did not take this drug, for a ratio of 1.5; 66% were men and 34% women. Patients treated with riluzole showed a median survival of 25.0 months (95% CI 19.8 to 30.5 months) and patients which didn´t receive treatment with riluzole showed a median survival of 18.0 months (95% CI 7.8 to 28.2 months), with a p-value of 0.17 for the comparison of survival distributions. In addition, a statistically significant difference in the time between the beginning of treatment with riluzole and placement of PEG (p-value 0.001) was found. Patients that received riluzole showed an increased average time before requiring the placement of PEG.

Conclusions: Patients using riluzole showed an increase in survival of seven months compared with those who didn´t (p = 0.17). Also, we observed that patients taking the drug presented a delay in requiring the placement of the percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy.