Clinical findings of 200 patients in Iran with definite multiple sclerosis (MS) according to Poser et al.'s criteria and positive findings on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been reviewed. The clinical course was relapsing-remitting (RR) for 88%, primary progressive (PP) for 7% and secondary progressive (SP) for 5% of cases. The mean age of onset was 27 +/- 7.4 years for the whole group and 37.1 +/- 8.8 years for PPMS. The gender ratio was 2.5:1 female:male. Involvement of the pyramidal system was the most common mode of presentation. Five per cent of patients had positive family history for the disease, 14% of patients had benign MS and 12% with disease duration longer than five years had an Expanded Disability Status Scale < or = 2. The optico-spinal form was not a common form of presentation in the group.

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According to our findings, higher tonic phase duration and longer PI period increased the odds of PGES formation.

1. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia in the elderly in which interplay between genes and the environment is supposed to be involved. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has the only noncoding regions at the displacement loop (D-loop) region that contains two hypervariable segments (HVS-I and HVS-II) with high polymorphism. mtDNA has already been fully sequenced and many subsequent publications have shown polymorphic sites, haplogroups, and haplotypes. Haplogroups could have important implications to understand the association between mutability of the mitochondrial genome and the disease.2. To assess the relationship between mtDNA haplogroup and AD, we sequenced the mtDNA HVS-I in 30 AD patients and 100 control subjects. We could find that haplogroups H and U are significantly more abundant in AD patients (P = 0.016 for haplogroup H and P = 0.0003 for haplogroup U), Thus, these two haplogroups might act synergistically to increase the penetrance of AD disease.

Background: MLC601 is a possible modulator of amyloid precursor protein processing, and in a clinical trial study MLC601 showed some effectiveness in cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of MLC601 in the treatment of mild to moderate AD as compared to 3 approved cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEIs) including donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine. Methods: In a multicenter, nonblinded, randomized controlled trial, 264 volunteers with AD were randomly divided into 4 groups of 66; groups 1, 2, 3 and 4 received donepezil, rivastigmine, MLC601 and galantamine, respectively. Subjects underwent a clinical diagnostic interview and a cognitive/functional battery including the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale - Cognitive subscale (ADAS-Cog). Patients were visited every 4 months, and the score of cognition was recorded by the neurologists. Results: There were no significant differences in age, sex, marital status and baseline score of cognition among the 4 groups. In total, 39 patients (14.7%) left the study. Trend of cognition changes based on the modifications over the time for MMSE and ADAS-cog scores did not differ significantly among groups (p = 0.92 for MMSE and p = 0.87 for ADAS-Cog). Conclusion: MLC601 showed a promising safety profile and also efficacy compared to 3 FDA-approved ChEIs.