Survival of Huntington’s disease patients in Serbia: longer survival in female patients

The objective of this study was to estimate probability of survival of Huntington’s disease (HD) patients in Serbia as a function of CAG repeat length and selected demographic variables. This follow-up study was carried out at the Institute of Neurology, Clinical Centre of Serbia, Belgrade, 1982–2004. The study group consisted of 112 HD patients. The significant inverse correlation was found between CAG repeat length and age at onset of HD (r = −0.732, P = 0.001) and age at death (r = −0.760, P = 0.001). The cumulative probabilities of survival in a five, ten, fifteen, and twenty-years’ period were 90.9, 63.2, 10.3 and 4.5%, respectively. Higher survival probabilities were registered in female patients, as well as in those with older age at onset and lower number of CAG repeat length (≤46). The Cox regression analysis showed that significantly poorer outcome of HD in our population was related to younger age at onset (HR-hazard ratio = 1.9; P = 0.047), and larger CAG numbers (HR = 2.4; P = 0.071). The female sex was statistically significantly associated with longer survival (HR = 0.4; P = 0.007). These data might be of some importance for further exploration of natural history and prognosis of HD.