Multiple sclerosis and other immunologic diseases.

A characteristic feature of immunologic diseases is their association with each other. For multiple sclerosis (MS), several retrospective studies reported increased as well as expected coincidence rates with other immunologic diseases. We conducted a prospective case-control study of MS patients and healthy volunteers and found 13/101 MS patients and 2/97 controls with such diseases (P = 0.009, chi-square test), as well as 47/88 MS patients versus 31/95 controls with a variety of circulating autoantibodies (P = 0.004, chi-square test). These results speak for an increased coincidence of MS with other immunologic diseases and support the idea that MS is also an immunologic disease.