hla profile and clinical presentation of multiple sclerosis in iran

multiple sclerosis (ms) is a demyelinating disease of the central nervous system, with unknown etiology in which both genetic and environmental factors are thought to be involved. the human leukocyte antigen (hla) system provides a set of genetic markers which lend themselves to systematic study. in iran, hla-a24, hla-dr2, and hla- dr15 are significantly increased in ms patients. the disease also has 3 main clinical presentations, consisting of relapsing- remitting (88%) primary progressive (7%) and secondary progressive with a gender ratio of 2.5:1 (female: male) and a mean age at onset of 27+ 7.4 years in our country. five percent of our patients had a positive family history for the disease, 14% of patients had benign ms, and 12% with disease duration longer than five years had an expanded disability status scale <2. the opticospinal form of ms was not a common form of presentation of the disease in iran.