Rapid Eye Movement Sleep Suppressing Antidepressant Prescription is Associated with Improved Survival in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

INTRODUCTION

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a period of physiological vulnerability for patients with neuromuscular disease, owing to a generalized loss of muscle tone that spares only the diaphragm. Several antidepressants have been observed to reduce REM sleep fraction on polysomnography. We investigated whether prescription of REM-suppressing antidepressants (RSAs) versus non-REM-suppressing antidepressants (NRSAs) is associated with differential survival in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

METHODS

Using the U.S. Collaborative Network of the TriNetX Analytics platform, we compared 1-year mortality in ALS patients prescribed RSAs or NRSAs within 3 months of diagnosis, identified by ICD-10-CM-coded encounter diagnoses with riluzole prescription between May 2014 and May 2024. We used Cox proportional hazards models, Kaplan-Meier analysis, and risk difference analysis, with and without propensity score matching (PSM).

RESULTS

Among 14,441 patients with ALS and riluzole prescription, 5,057 were prescribed either RSAs (N = 4,177) or NRSAs (N = 880). The NRSA cohort had a higher risk of death (HR 1.28, 95% CI 1.11 - 1.46), with 1-year survival of 60.73% versus 68.61% for RSAs (log-rank p<0.001). After PSM, the difference narrowed and was borderline by log-rank test (60.97% vs 65.92%, p=0.035), while the risk-difference analysis was no longer significant (RR 1.07, 95% CI 0.92 - 1.25), indicating an attenuated and statistically fragile association.

CONCLUSIONS

RSA prescription was associated with modestly better survival, but this association weakened markedly after matching and cannot establish causation; residual confounding, particularly by indication, cannot be excluded. These findings are hypothesis-generating, and prospective studies incorporating polysomnography and ALS-specific prognostic factors are needed.