Clinical, Epidemiological, Demographical Study of MS Patients at the Department of Neurology/MS, Hospital de São Marcos de Braga, Portugal

Abstract

Background: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic progressive inflammatory disease, demyelinating and degenerative, affecting the Central Nervous System (CNS). The importance of the disease in the current context is undeniable considering that it corresponds to the second cause of neurological disability in young adults in developed countries. Our main goal is to characterize the MS population in the Hospital de São Marcos de Braga, that serves a population of 564.333 residents in the District of Braga, North of Portugal, with respect to prevalence, incidence and survival.

Methods We considered the epidemiological measurements according to age, gender, and their diagnosis of MS. We will also present some preliminary results from the analysis of the geographical distribution of the disease and its possible relation with, explanatory variables as region of residence.

Results In the present MS study, we found an estimated disease prevalence of 41,6 per 100.000 inhabitants. In addition, for all MS patients followed at MS Outpatient Clinic, we report patient demographic characteristics (sex, age, age at diagnosis, treatment, spatial distribution of place of residence) and clinical outcome: type of the disease, treatment, clinical severity score (EDSS rating scale), year and month of diagnosis.

Conclusion(s) Our main conclusions were obtained comparing the results of this study with the ones from the other MS studies in Portugal. In this study we estimated a prevalence of 41,6/100.000. For future work we intend to collect more cases in hospital and private clinics to get better estimates for prevalence and other epidemiological measurements in this region of Portugal.