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The Ausimmune Study– progress to end of participant recruitment.

Key points:

•  There have been 305 persons with a first clinical diagnosis of central nervous system demyelination notified to the Ausimmune study and eligible to participate; of these, 291 are participating (95% response rate).

•  47.4% of controls randomly selected from the Australian Electoral Roll (n = 522) and age and sex matched to a case have agreed to participate in the Ausimmune Study.

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Figure 1. Age distribution of case notified to the Ausimmune Study

Table 1 . Male to female ratio of case notifications   Brisbane : 1:5.5 Newcastle : 1:3.5 Geelong : 1:2.3 Tasmania : 1:2.8   Overall: 1:3.3 Overall male to female ratio is 1:3.3, with some regional variation (see Table 1)

Figure 1 shows the age distribution of eligible cases notified to the Ausimmune Study. Mean age at notification is 38.3 years (note that with some cases self-notifying to the study following a letter sent by the local MS society, age at notification may not be age at onset of FDE).

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Figure 2. Annual incidence of cases notified, by latitude, Nov 1 2003 to Dec 31, 2006

Key points: •  There is a persistent latitudinal gradient in incidence of eligible case notifications: 7.3% increase in incidence per one degree increase in latitude (results to date) •  Case and control recruitment are now completed. •  All participating cases are being offered the opportunity to participate in a full neurological review at 2 or 3 years from initial participation

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The 2-3 year review phase for cases now underway in all regions will allow examination of what factors affect progression (or not) to MS in those who have had first symptoms consistent with central nervous system demyelination. We are fortunate that MS Research Australia has sourced funds to enable the study to collect and store blood from consenting controls in a form suitable for the MS gene bank.

The Ausimmune Study has received funding support from:

• The National Multiple Sclerosis Society of the United States
• The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia
• Study coordinator position
• Equipment grants (2) for a spectrophotometer and an ultralow freezer
• The role of EBV and HHV-6 in the onset of multiple sclerosis
• The ACT Health and Medical Research Council
• Multiple Sclerosis Research Australia
• The Multiple Sclerosis Society of Tasmania (to support the Tasmanian study region)
• The ANZ William Buckland Foundation (to support the Geelong study region)
• The Royal Australasian College of Physicians Cottrell Fellowship
• MS Research Australia
• The Neil and Norma Hill Foundation
• The Macquarie Bank
• The Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation
• The Collier Charitable Fund (to support the Geelong study region)
• Mrs Heather and Mr Bill Webster
• Mr John Lehmann
• Pierce Armstrong Foundation
• The Jack Brockoff Foundation

We would also like to acknowledge the support of MS Australia and the MS societies of Queensland , Tasmania and New South Wales and Victoria .

 

 

 

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