[Evaluation of therapeutic effects of beta IFN on relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis]

ABSTRACT

There is over 10 years that beta IFN for the treatment of MS is presented to the world of medicine. As there are some doubts about the Pathophysiology of MS, there may be some differences between our patients and other ones; so a study of this type for our own patients is essential. This is a descriptive-analytic and clinical trial study. According to the clinical and paraclinical findings, the patients with the diagnosis of Relapsing Remitting MS included for this study. Severity of disability [according to EDSS and FS] and the numbers of attacks were estimated before and after treatment with IFN/ beta Side effects of IFN beta were evaluated, too. 69% of patients were female and 31% male. Mean age of onset is 26.93 years old and mean duration of disease 5.13 years. Mean relapsing rate before and after of treatment was 1.79 and 0.74 respectively; the difference between these two is significant [P<0.05].The mean of EDSS at the months of O, 3, 6,9,12 was decreased significantly [P0.05]. The most common side effect of IFN-beta in our study is flu like syndrome [27.5%]. Epidemiologic findings of this study such as M/F ratio and age of onset are similar to other studies. Statistical tests revealed the effects of IFN beta on the decrease of disabilities and relapse rate, but there are no differences of these effects between male and female