ABSTRACT
An epidemiological study of multiple sclerosis carried out in Gijón (Principado de Asturias). It had the methodological peculiarity of having been performed in a reduced population of 81,462 individuals selected from the primary health care centers from which they depended. This permitted a better case finding and both a prospective and retrospective investigation. In the prospective period, the incidence found was 0.49/100,000/year, while it was 1.59 in the retrospective period. The reasons for this difference are discussed. The prevalence was 23.32/100,000. We attribute the fact that this rate is higher than that previously reported for Spain to methodological and perhaps geographical reasons.
Subject(s)
Multiple Sclerosis/epidemiology , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Cohort Studies , Cross-Sectional Studies , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Prospective Studies , Retrospective Studies , Risk , Spain/epidemiologyABSTRACT
The objective of this study was to ascertain the prevalence and incidence of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in a population of 33,775 in two primary health care centres in the sanitary district of Gijon, Asturias, northern Spain. Many information sources were used but the unique advantage of Gijon was that the city has a centralized computerized register of all diagnoses made for all consultations in the clinics and hospitals in the area. The HLA distribution in the population was already known and the Poser classification of MS was used. The crude MS prevalence was 65/100,000, a similar prevalence to that found in southern and eastern Spain, Sicily and Greek-speaking Cyprus. The mean incidence was 3.7/100,000 per year. The study demonstrated the advantage of a centralized and computerized medical recording system and demonstrates that northern Spain is a moderately high or medium MS risk zone.