Anish Sethi

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurogenerative disease characterized by the progressive loss of motor neurons, leading to muscle atrophy and decreased quality of life. A multidisciplinary team can assist patients in retaining their quality of life and autonomy while helping with symptoms through interventions and treatments. One such intervention is riluzole, which is a recent pharmaceutical advancement that prolongs survival by blocking neuronal excitation. Previous research has shown some relationship between estrogen and ALS, and it would be beneficial to determine whether riluzole may have different molecular and systemic impacts on patients based on biological sex. Here we show that riluzole may impact on patients differently based on biological sex. We found that riluzole has not shown a significant improvement in multiple variables measured in clinic, which is contradictory to initial riluzole clinical trials but aligns with some subsequent studies. Our results demonstrate that there are only statistically significant differences in BMI between males and females on riluzole yet no difference in FVC, BMI, and ALSFRS scores between biological sexes in any other group. Medicine is an ever-advancing field, and new diseases and promising therapeutics will be discovered as we continue to research the human body. However, it is imperative that differences based on biological sex are accounted for and should be further researched, as shown by our study.