Table 3.

Comparison between ALS patients who were first observed by a neurologist and non-neurologist.

	Neurologist (n = 111)	Non-neurologist (n = 436)	p -value
Age (years)	66.1 ± 1.2	64.7 ± 0.6	0.28**
Gender (male)	62%	56%	0.26***
Spinal-onset	59%	69%	0.05***
Bulbar-onset	29%	21%	0.09***
ALSFRS-R rate of decline (per month)	0.6 (0.2–1.5)	0.5 (0.3–1.0)	0.55***
Median time between symptom onset and first medical observation (months, 1st−3rd IQR)	4 (1–7)	2 (1–10)	0.01***
Median time between first medical observation and diagnosis (months, 1st−3rd IQR)	3 (1–8)	6 (3–13)	<0.001***
Investigation requested
EMG	75%	20%	<0.001**
Brain CT scan	21%	0.1%	<0.001***
Cervical CT scan	0.05%	0.04%	0.93***
Lumbo-sacral CT scan	0.01%	0.1%	0.005***
Brain MRI	36%	0.05%	<0.001***
Cervical MRI	42%	0.07%	<0.001***
Thoracic MRI	0.2%	0.02%	<0.001***
Lumbo-sacral MRI	0.2%	0.1%	0.091***
Made the diagnosis	45%	0%	<0.001**
Time to second medical observation (months)	4 (2–7.5)	3 (1–6)	0.12***

ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; ALSFRS-R, ALS Functional Rating Scale—Revised; EMG, electromyography; CT, computed tomography; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging.

^*Student's t-test.

^**Chi-squared-test.

^***Mann–Whitney U-test.

Bold values highlight the differences that are statistically significant.