Epidemiology of multiple sclerosis in Iraq: retrospective review of 4355 cases and literature review.

Objectives: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive demyelinating and degenerative disease of the CNS, which is highly variable geographically. The objectives are to establish comprehensive nationwide MS epidemiological data and compare it with similar studies conducted in regional and international communities. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first nationwide comprehensive epidemiological study conducted in Iraq.