Introduction/Objectives:
Multiple sclerosis is one of the most common, most difficult and most important neurological diseases, because of its frequency, chronic features and tendency to affect young people. In Bosnia and Herzegovina there is no register of patients with MS. In the Sarajevo Canton there are 198 registered patients, who are treated in the Clinical Center of Sarajevo University. Care for patients at the Neurology Clinic of Clinical Center Sarajevo is partly of secondary, and partly on tertiary level of health care. Tertiary level of care is for the patients from 4 Cantons.
Goal:
To provide a review of the population suffering from multiple sclerosis treated during 2006 at the Neurology Clinic of Clinical Center of Sarajevo University from the aspect of gender differences, age, type of disease, average duration of hospitalization, precipitating factors for the disease or relapsing, and noticed mental disturbances. Particular emphasis is given to the treatment with immune system modulators.
Participants, Materials/Methods:
In this study we used a specially designed questionnaire, and history of illness of patients who were diagnosed as multiple sclerosis, treated at the Neurology Clinic from January 1st – December 31st 2006.
Results:
The number of patients with MS was 71 (61.87% of female gender) aged from 40–49 years (43.66%). The average lifetime with respect to the onset of the first symptoms was 33.01 ± 8.3 years. Hospital stay lasted on average of 19.5 days. Precipitating factor in 29.57% of cases with deterioration or disease is the infection and in 16.9% the stress. 26.76% of patients had a RR type of illness. Therapy with interferon was in 4.48% of patients. Therapy with high doses of metilpredinisolone received 66.7% of patients. Depression disorder was present in 32.9% of patients, and cognitive dysfunction in 9.86%. The average EDSS score was 4.5. Relapsing rate was 4.63 per patient.
Conclusions:
Based on our research we can conclude that the overall mortality of clinical patients, MS was responsible for 2.84% of all treated. Average patient's age was 33.01 years with a statistically significant more frequent disease in female population. Average EDSS was 4.5, relapsing rate 4.63, the possibility for immune modulating therapy 4.48%. In the next period is imperative to create a unified register of patients in order to conduct their treatment according to therapeutic guidelines.
