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http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/nati...sis060123.html

Study's findings challenge impact of MS on males

Last Updated Mon, 23 Jan 2006 17:00:11 EST
CBC News
Both men and women with multiple sclerosis end up using a cane at around the same age, a finding that challenges the perception that males are hit harder by MS, Canadian researchers say.

Helen Tremlett and her colleagues at the University of British Columbia's department of medicine studied the degree of disability among 2,837 people with MS in the province for more than 20 years.

MS can occur at any age, but is usually diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 40. Multiple sclerosis attacks the brain and spinal cord and can lead to paralysis and sometimes blindness. B.C. and Canada have some of the highest rates of MS in the world.

"Using an internationally endorsed scale that measures disability, the research team determined that men and women with MS require a cane to walk at around the same age," Tremlett said in a statement.

The scale scores disability from zero to 10, where zero represents no disability and 10 a rare death due to MS. The study looked at age to measure six, the rating when a cane is required.

The average age for using a cane was 60 among women and 59 for men, the team reports in the Jan. 24 issue of the journal Neurology.

Women are more than twice as likely to develop MS than men, but earlier studies suggested men become more disabled.

But studies of multiple sclerosis traditionally use the date of onset based on when a patient first recalls symptoms, an approach that depends on how well a doctor takes a medical history and the patient's recall.

To try to overcome these problems, the B.C. team used date of birth and clinical onset, reducing reliance on imprecise dates of onset or diagnosis.

"By using date of birth as an inception point, we were able to challenge two fundamental concepts in MS, demonstrating that male sex and older age at onset are not synonymous with a worse disease outcome," the researchers wrote.

On average, those who were diagnosed in their 20s needed a cane age at 55. This same level of disability was reached at age 71 for those diagnosed at age 50 and up, the researchers reported.

No onset symptom independently predicted a better or worse outcome,Tremlett's team concluded.

The researchers note they looked at disease progression only in terms of the disability scale, not other symptoms of MS such as numbness, tingling or pain.

There are an estimated 50,000 people living with MS in Canada, according to the MS Society of Canada, which funded the study.