Increased Incidence and Clinical Picture of Childhood Narcolepsy following the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic Vaccination Campaign in Finland

Peer reviewe

Increased incidence and clinical picture of childhood narcolepsy following the 2009 H1N1 pandemic vaccination campaign in Finland. PLoS One 7

Abstract Background: Narcolepsy is a rare neurological sleep disorder especially in children who are younger than 10 years. In the beginning of 2010, an exceptionally large number of Finnish children suffered from an abrupt onset of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and cataplexy. Therefore, we carried out a systematic analysis of the incidence of narcolepsy in Finland between the years 2002-2010

Clinical findings.

§<p>This table contains information of only those 6 subjects who were aged≤17 years at diagnosis. The other 10 of the 16 subjects reported by Dauvilliers et al.2010³⁴ were older. They were not included to enable comparisons.</p>#<p>We defined weight gain as an increase of body mass index (BMI) >5%. Aran et al⁴⁰ defined it as >4 kg weight gain. NC: narcolepsy and cataplexy; NwC: narcolepsy without cataplexy. N/A: Not applicable; SD: standard deviation; SEM: standard error of mean. Statistically significant differences between our study and other studies are marked as.</p>***<p>for P<0.001,</p>**<p>for P<0.01 and,</p>*<p>for P<0.05. The numbers (N = ) in parenthesis refer to number of subjects with data.</p><p>Comparison of the present study and published studies from literature for children aged≤17 years.</p

Annual incidence of narcolepsy by age group and year of diagnosis.

<p>Annual incidence of narcolepsy by age group and year of diagnosis.</p

Number of new diagnoses of narcolepsy among adults aged 20 years or more by year of diagnosis.

<p>Number of new diagnoses of narcolepsy among adults aged 20 years or more by year of diagnosis.</p