Causes of Death in Multiple Sclerosis: Cross-sectional Analysis of 16 Years Period

Abstract

Most patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) survive far several decades and death often occurs in late course of MS. There are four major causes of death in MS: Directly associated with an attack, due to secondary complications, non-MS related, and suicide. The present study is carried out to define the causes of death in MS. We observed 26 patients who died ( 65% women, 35% men, mean age at onset of disease 32.3±10.6 yrs, mean age at death 42.7± 14.4 yrs) among 944 recorded MS patients. During sixteen years period the most frequent initial symptom was spinal involvement (46.1%) . This was followed by brainstem involvement with cerebellar symptoms (23%), pur cerebellar involvement {11.9%) and optic neuritis (11 .9%). in 16 (61%) patients, death was directly related with complications owing to MS, in 7 (28%) patients, death was due to non-MS related causes. in 2 (8%) patients death was associated with brainstem involvement during acute exacerbation. in 1 (3.8%) patient death was due to suicide. Data from this study indicates the mean death age in MS patients is lower than general Turkish population of death age for both male and female.