Table 1.
Involved organs of GI tract in patients with ALS.
| Organs | Symptoms | Stage of disease | Sample size | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pancreas and parotid glands | Parotid flow rate and bicarbonate concentration from ALS patients were found to be decreased by about 66% and 70% respectively, when compared with controls. | 17 patients | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4852110/ | |
| Pancreas | Symptomatic | 5 patients with ALS and 5 additional patients with neurologic disease other than ALS | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6066871/ | |
| Pancreas/Small Intestine | There were varices and a traction diverticulum of esophagus in one patient, a small sliding hernia in another, and a possible duodenal ulcer. There was some segmentation and coarsening of the small bowel in one patient and a rapid transit time in another. | Symptomatic | 10 patients with ALS and 1 patient with chronic pancreatitis | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5505684/ |
| ENS | c-Ret immunoreactivity in myenteric and submucosal ganglia, GFAP-ir labeled cells appeared within myenteric ganglia while c-Kit labelled cells appeared around myenteric ganglia. Propose the ENS marker for the ALS patients | 12 human sample No direct data from ALS patients |
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24868525/ | |
| Intestine | Intestinal inflammatory markers in stool samples | Symptomatic | 5 patients with ALS | (Rowin et al., 2017) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28947596/ |
| GI motor dysfunction | delayed gastric emptying and colonic transit times | Symptomatic | (Wingate, 1999) | |
| GI motor dysfunction/urinary tract | investigated disease severity, lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and intestinal dysfunction. | Symptomatic | 43 patients with ALS | (Nubling et al., 2014) |
| Liver | Granular G127X SOD1 inclusions were seen in hepatocytes in the liver, and the staining was more widespread. Granular G127X SOD1 inclusions were also found in kidney tubular epithelium. There was presence of inactive micronodular cirrhosis with some steatosis of the liver. There were some elevated liver disease markers. | Postmortem | 1 patient suffered from rapidly progressing ALS and died of respiratory insufficiency and 5 age-matched patients who died of non-neurological diseases | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18409196/ |
| Liver | Increased size of pale hepatocytes, mild fatty infiltration | Symptomatic | 21 patients with ALS and control specimens randomly chosen from 215 patients with various liver diseases | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3800708/ |
| Systemic | Increased LPS, Inflammation | Symptomatic | sALS | (Zhang et al., 2009) |