Name: SKY-0515 in Huntington's disease: Prevalence of Huntington's disease
Published: 2026-09-16T18:00:43-04:00

Global prevalence: updated systematic review and meta-analysis

“Pooled prevalence was 4.88 per 100,000 (95% CI, 3.38-7.06). Subanalyses by continent demonstrated that the prevalence of HD was significantly higher in Europe and North America than in Africa.” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)

Global prevalence: systematic review and meta-analysis, by region

“The worldwide service-based prevalence of HD, based on a meta-analysis (n = 13 studies), was 2.71 per 100,000 (95% CI: 1.55-4.72). Eleven studies were conducted in Europe, North American, and Australia, with an overall prevalence of 5.70 per 100,000 (95% CI: 4.42-7.35). Three studies were conducted in Asia, with an overall prevalence of 0.40 per 100,000 (95% CI: 0.26-0.61).” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)

Geographic variation and prevalence trends

“The prevalence of HD varies more than tenfold between different geographical regions.” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)
“There was evidence of an increasing prevalence of between 15 and 20% per decade in studies from Australia, North America and Western Europe.” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)

“In populations of European ancestry, HD occurs at an average prevalence of 9.71:100,000 [Rawlins et al 2016], with up to 17:100,000 when multiple sources of ascertainment are accounted” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)

United States: symptomatic and at-risk population

“Today, there are approximately 41,000 symptomatic Americans and more than 200,000 at-risk of inheriting the disease.” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)

“as many as ~40,000 people may have manifest HD in the US.” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)
“Sources frequently state that 30,000 individuals living in the US have HD, but the methodology used to derive this prevalence estimate is unclear.” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)

United States: claims-based prevalence

“In the Medicare population, 1,941 prevalent and 819 incident cases of HD were identified in 2017, corresponding to a prevalence proportion of 13.1 per 100,000 persons and incidence rate of 6.1 per 100,000 person-years. In the Medicaid population, 353 prevalent cases of HD were identified in 2014, corresponding to a prevalence proportion of 15.2 per 100,000 persons.” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)

“We estimated a cumulative age-adjusted HD frequency rate of 6.52 per 100,000 persons” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)

United Kingdom: primary care prevalence

“The estimated prevalence (expressed per 100 000 population) rose from 5.4 (95% CI 3.8 to 7.5) in 1990 to 12.3 (95% CI 11.2 to 13.5) in 2010.” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)

“Annual prevalence steadily increased throughout the study period, with prevalence estimates ranging from 4.3 cases (3.6–5.1) per 100,000 in 2000 to 9.2 cases (8.1–10.5) per 100,000 people in 2018 (β = 0.27, p < 0.001).” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)

Juvenile and pediatric Huntington's disease: proportion in Enroll-HD

“50 compared with 7544 adult (0.66%) and 22 out of 16,124 family participants (0.14%) were pediatric.” (opens the source at this quote in a new tab)