Health Care Use Before Multiple Sclerosis Symptom Onset.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Health care use increases before multiple sclerosis (MS) onset. However, most studies have focused on the 5 to 10 years preceding the first demyelinating disease code from administrative data. Few studies have examined patterns before clinically determined MS symptom onset from clinical records.

Objective

To examine health care use 25 years before MS symptom onset in a clinical cohort from British Columbia, Canada.

Design, setting, and participants

This matched cohort study accessed data prospectively collected from January 1991 to September 2018. All data were released mid-2024 for analysis. The study was conducted in British Columbia using publicly funded universal health insurance data. Patients with MS were identified from MS clinic records and matched

SUBMITTER: Ruiz-Alguero M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12317355 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature