Military service and the risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: A meta-analysis

To explore the relationship between the risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and exposure to overall military service, we conducted a search of articles relevant to military service and the risk of ALS that used human subjects and were published in English through 20 May 2016, using Ovid Medline and Embase databases. Studies specially investigating the risk of ALS for Gulf war veterans were excluded. Quality of the cohort and case-control studies was assessed according to the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). Analysis of data and publication bias were performed with Review Manager 5.3. A total of 8 case-control studies and 3 cohort studies were included in the meta-analysis. Only two case-control studies were conducted in Japan, comparing to 9 studies conducted in Europe/USA. The NOS scores of all studies were ≥6/9. The risk of ALS was significantly increased in military personnel compared to non-military personnel (pooled OR=1.29, 95% CI: 1.08-1.54, by random-effects model), with a moderate heterogeneity (P=0.01, I²=55%) due to some studies with lower quality, conformed by subgroup and sensitivity analysis. The present meta-analysis supports a positive association between overall military service and the risk of ALS. Additional studies are needed to find out related factors influencing the ALS risk of veterans, especially by gender and for specific geographic regions such as Asia. That would also do some favor to explore the etiology and mechanism of ALS.