epidemiology of multiple sclerosis in qom: demographic study in iran.

background: recent studies have demonstrated controversial results and somewhat increased frequency of multiple  sclerosis  (ms). we reevaluated  the  files of  ms patients  from qom province of iran in order to investigate the epidemiology of the disease. methods:   demographic   and  clinical records  of  592  ms patients  were reviewed, which included; age, sex, date  of birth, marital and occupation status, presenting symptoms, time of onset, type and family history of ms, and history of autoimmune or other diseases. results: at the  time  of our study, 11 patients  had  died, and 581 were alive with a total female-to-male  ratio of 3.4. the mean age of onset of the disease was 34.25 ± 9.01 for all the  patients.  11.2% of  patients   had  positive  family history  of ms. the majority  of patients  (80.1%) showed relapsing-remitting  (rr)  pattern.  the  prevalence   of  ms was calculated as 50.4/100000 for qom. conclusion: qom is located within a high risk zone of ms. although we found evidences about the role of environmental factors, geographical distribution, and etcetera, many more studies need  to be performed  in this respect.