Klaus Joachim Lauer was born in 1950 and studied medicine in Frankfurt (Germany) from 1968 to 1975. He became a resident in the Department of Neurology of Klinikum Darmstadt, the Academic Teaching Hospital of Frankfurt University (Akademisches Lehrkrankenhaus der Universitäten Frankfurt/Main und Heidelberg-Mannheim, a major healthcare institution in South Hesse. Besides clinical work, Lauer devoted most of his research to epidemiology, with a special focus on MS etiology.
Career
Early on, he published a series of five articles[1][2][3][4][5] on multiple sclerosis in the land of Hesse with Wolfgang Firnhaber, who had already been studying MS epidemiology in Göttingen and Darmstadt,[6] with support from the Hertie Foundation, the German Research Foundation and the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft. His lasting collaboration with Prof. Firnhaber, a longtime expert in MS prognostication[7][8][9] and geomedical aspects of MS,[10] provided K. Lauer with a solid background in geomedical investigation.[11][12]
In the mid 80's, Lauer launched a series of specialized reports in Scandinavia, starting with a study of multiple sclerosis in Western Norway published in Neurology.[13] He has been following Norvegian MS ever since [14][15] and has also coauthored epidemiological studies in Sweden with Anne-Marie Landtblom and Inger Boström.[16]
Like John Kurtzke,[17] Klaus J. Lauer has dedicated a large part of his work to the study of MS in the Faroe Islands,[18] starting with a 1986 article in the Journal of Neurology entitled "Some comments on the occurrence of multiple sclerosis in the Faroe Islands",[19] followed in 1988 by "Multiple sclerosis in relation to industrial and commercial activities in the Faroe Islands"[20] in the journal Neuroepidemiology, followed one year later by "Dietary changes in temporal relation to multiple sclerosis in the Faroe Islands: an evaluation of literary sources"[21] in the same journal.
MS is generally considered a multifactorial disease,[22] in which genetic predispositions and environmental triggers combine to launch an autoimmune process. As an international expert on the environmental dimension of MS,[23] Lauer compiled a review in Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics.[24]
Since 1992, Lauer has published a large number of epidemiological studies covering most west European countries,[25][26][27][28][29] Russia,[30] the USA,[31][32] Canada, some countries in Asia and the Middle-East,[33] with a special focus on dietary aspects of etiology.[34][35][36][37] Most recently, Klaus Lauer has focused again on MS in the Faroes [38][39] and has been involved as an expert in the steering committee of the EnviMS study, a major multi-countries study investigating the impact of environmental exposures on MS.[40][41][42] Lauer is also one of the authors of a reference study of the cost of MS in Europe[43] and of several publications dealing with technical and methodological considerations in neuroepidemiology applied to multiple sclerosis.[44][45]
References
^Lauer K, Firnhaber W, Reining R, Leuchtweis B (October 1984). "Epidemiological investigations into multiple sclerosis in southern Hesse. I. Methodological problems and basic epidemiologic characteristics". Acta Neurologica Scandinavica. 70 (4): 257–65. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0404.1984.tb00823.x. PMID6507035. S2CID37474492.
^Bauer H, Firnhaber W (July 1963). "Zur Leistungsprognose Multiple-Sklerose-Kranker" [On the prognosis of work capacity in patients with multiple sclerosis]. Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift (in German). 88 (27): 1357–64. doi:10.1055/s-0028-1112108. PMID13966928.
^Lauer K, Firnhaber W (February 1992). "Prognostic criteria in an epidemiological group of patients with multiple sclerosis: an exploratory study". Journal of Neurology. 239 (2): 93–7. doi:10.1007/BF00862981. PMID1552310. S2CID24945652.
^Firnhaber W (May 1972). "[Multiple sclerosis. Methods and results of a geomedical study]". Fortschritte der Medizin (in German). 90 (14): 551–4. PMID5072275.
^Prange AJ, Lauer K, Poser S, et al. (1986). "Epidemiological aspects of multiple sclerosis: a comparative study of four centres in Europe". Neuroepidemiology. 5 (2): 71–9. doi:10.1159/000110816. PMID3785525.
^Risberg G, Aarseth JH, Nyland H, Lauer K, Myhr KM, Midgard R (October 2011). "Prevalence and incidence of multiple sclerosis in Oppland County: a cross-sectional population-based study in a landlocked county of Eastern Norway". Acta Neurologica Scandinavica. 124 (4): 250–7. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0404.2010.01465.x. PMID21143594. S2CID22178018.
^Boström I, Landtblom AM, Lauer K (December 2011). "An ecological study of industry in a high-risk region of multiple sclerosis". Journal of the Neurological Sciences. 311 (1–2): 50–7. doi:10.1016/j.jns.2011.09.005. PMID21982618. S2CID9442941.
^Lauer K (June 1986). "Some comments on the occurrence of multiple sclerosis in the Faroe Islands". Journal of Neurology. 233 (3): 171–3. doi:10.1007/BF00314427. PMID3522812. S2CID22437259.
^Lauer K (1988). "Multiple sclerosis in relation to industrial and commercial activities in the Faroe Islands". Neuroepidemiology. 7 (4): 228–33. doi:10.1159/000110155. PMID3264057.
^Lauer K (1989). "Dietary changes in temporal relation to multiple sclerosis in the Faroe Islands: an evaluation of literary sources". Neuroepidemiology. 8 (4): 200–6. doi:10.1159/000110183. PMID2755551.
^Lauer, K (1988). "Sociogeographic factors and multiple sclerosis--an ecological study in 6 European countries". Neuroepidemiology. 7 (3): 122–9. doi:10.1159/000110145. PMID3405364.
^Lauer, K (1989). "Multiple sclerosis in relation to meat preservation in France and Switzerland". Neuroepidemiology. 8 (6): 308–15. doi:10.1159/000110199. PMID2586701.
^Lauer, Klaus (1993-12-01). "A factor-analytical study of the multiple sclerosis mortality in Hesse and Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany". Journal of Public Health. 1 (4): 319–327. doi:10.1007/BF02959681. S2CID32460157.
^Lauer, K (1990). "Mortality of multiple sclerosis in relation to geographic factors in France". Neuroepidemiology. 9 (3): 113–7. doi:10.1159/000110759. PMID2402320.
^Lauer, K (1989). "Risk of multiple sclerosis in relation to industrial activities: An ecological study in four European countries". Neuroepidemiology. 8 (1): 38–42. doi:10.1159/000110163. PMID2911392.
^Lauer, K (1994). "The risk of multiple sclerosis in the U.S.A. In relation to sociogeographic features: A factor-analytic study". Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 47 (1): 43–8. doi:10.1016/0895-4356(94)90032-9. PMID8283194.
^Lauer, K (1991). "The history of nitrite in human nutrition: A contribution from German cookery books". Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 44 (3): 261–4. doi:10.1016/0895-4356(91)90037-a. PMID1999685.
^Sobocki, P; Pugliatti, M; Lauer, K; Kobelt, G (2007). "Estimation of the cost of MS in Europe: Extrapolations from a multinational cost study". Multiple Sclerosis. 13 (8): 1054–64. doi:10.1177/1352458507077941. PMID17623729. S2CID3263445.
