Estudo do Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite (MSFC) em portadores de neurite óptica desmielinizante isolada

Abstract

TITLE: Study of Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite (MSFC) in patients with isolated demyelinating optic neuritis. INTRODUCTION: Isolated idiopathic optic neuritis (IION) is an immune-mediated inflammatory disease of the optic nerve which carries a risk of converting to multiple sclerosis (MS). Although conversion depends on a number of factors, the presence of subclinical abnormalities at brain magnetic resonance imaging at baseline is the strongest predictive factor. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composity (MSFC) as a tool to identify subclinical neurological abnormalities in patients with IION. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The scores of the MSFC individual component tests and the MSFC Z-Score of 34 patients with unilateral monophasic IION and 34 matched healthy controls were compared. RESULTS: The T25-FW and the 9-HPT scores were significantly lower in IION patients than in Controls (p=0.000 and p=0.003 respectively) whereas the PASAT scores were not different in these groups (p=0.135). Patients with IION had lower Z-Score than Controls (p=0.001). CONCLUSION: MSFC is a valuable tool to identify subclinical functional abnormalities in IION patients. These changes may suggest dissemination of demyelinating lesions in space and turn out to be a predictive factor of MS developing in patients with IION.