We sought to determine whether Swedish patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) with and without oligoclonal bands (OCBs) in the CSF constitute distinct subpopulations, clinically and immunogenetically. Our findings indicate that OCB-negative MS shares the same clinical features as OCB-positive MS regarding female predominance, age at onset, proportion of primary progressive cases, rate of MRI positivity, and disease severity. Our HLA-DRB1 genotyping results suggest, however, that OCB-positive and OCB-negative MS are immunogenetically distinct.

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Overall, no significant difference between cases and controls were found, indicating that consanguinity in itself does not appear to be an important risk factor for MS in the population of the Faroe Islands.