اپیدمیولوژی بیماری اسکلروز متعدد: مطالعه سه ساله در تهران

Background: Multiple sclerosis is the most common demyelinating disease of central nervous system. We prepared this study to find its epidemiologic pattern in the Iranian society.Methods: This case-series study involved 70 patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis according to the McDonald criteria and admitted to the Iranian Center of Neurological Research at Imam Khomeini Hospital from 2002 to 2004. Informed consent was obtained prior to patients completing a questionnaire, which included age, gender, age of onset of clinical symptoms, home location, familial history, education level, smoking habits and the season during which the disease occurred, was exacerbated or relapsed. SPSS 11 statistical software was used to analyze the data. Results: The mean age of the patients was 32.6 years. Approximately one-third of our patients were male, 92.9% resided in urban areas, 14.3% had an academic education, and 14.3% were cigarette smokers. The average age of onset of disease was 27.55±10.42 years, and 8.6% had positive a familial history for multiple sclerosis. The symptoms most commonly started in the spring (31.4%). Conclusion: The alternation of temperature and sunlight may be one reason for the high incidence of multiple sclerosis in spring and autumn. It seems that multiple sclerosis epidemiologic patterns in Iran are the same as those of other countries. Thus, applying the common diagnostic and treatment methods in used in other countries may raise our patients' quality of life.