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. 2012 Jan 30:4:RRN1293.
doi: 10.1371/currents.RRN1293.

Aspiration pneumonia and death in Huntington's disease

Anne-Wil Heemskerk  1 , Raymund A C Roos
Affiliations

Aspiration pneumonia and death in Huntington's disease

Anne-Wil Heemskerk et al. PLoS Curr. .

Abstract

Huntington's disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative autosomal dominant disease characterized by choreatic and hypokinetic movements, disturbed behaviour, and cognitive decline. Pneumonia is the most common cause of death, followed by cardiovasculair diseases. It has been suggested that choking is the causative underlying factor for pneumonia in HD. As a detailed specification of the type of pneumonia has never been performed, we analyzed the records of our Brain Bank containing 224 cases to determine the exact cause of death and type of pneumonia. The conclusion is that the majority (86.8%) of our HD patients where the cause of death could be identified died from aspiration pneumonia.

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