Nervous System Diseases: an ever increasing cost for society

The human brain is the site of our personality, thoughts, feelings and creativity. Unfortunately it is also the seat of the most devastating and chronic diseases. Diseases of the CNS are the world’s leading cause of disability and account for more hospitalisations and sustained care than almost all other diseases combined. More than 1000 pathologies and disorders concern the brain, the spinal cord and peripheral nervous system (NS). Almost everyone is confronted one day with a NS syndrome (migraine, insomnia, depression, addiction …), and one person in 10 will develop a serious NS disease without any cure.

These diseases have an incidence and a socio-economical cost that increase at an alarming rate. As an example, U.S. society spends at least $100 billion a year on Alzheimer’s disease. It is expected that Alzheimer’s disease will cost $500 billion a year by 2020. By 2050, the estimated range of Alzheimer’s disease prevalence will be 11.3 million to 16 million Americans, unless a cure or prevention is found. At present, in Europe, some 7 million people have Alzheimer’s disease.

For the World Health Organization, the burden of brain disorders constitutes 35 to 38% of the total burden of all diseases (data based on DALYs: disability adjusted life years), compared to 12.7% for cancer and 11.8% for cardiovascular diseases. A recent extensive study in Europe indicates that in 28 European countries with a population of 466 million, 127 million are affected by at least one brain disorder. The total annual cost of brain disorders in Europe was estimated to €386 billion in 2004, but this estimation is considered very conservative: the true economic cost of brain disorders in Europe is more likely in the range of €500-700 billion per year (Andlin-Sobocki et al., 2005, Eur. J. Neurol. Suppl 1:1-27).