Research: Nerve damage in the eyes of MSers

Gelfand et al. Retinal Axonal Loss Begins Early in the Course of Multiple Sclerosis and Is Similar between Progressive Phenotypes. PLoS One. 2012;7(5):e36847. Epub 2012 May 23.

BACKGROUND: To determine whether retinal axonal loss is detectable in patients with a clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), a first clinical demyelinating attack suggestive of multiple sclerosis (MS), and examine patterns of retinal axonal loss across MS disease subtypes.


METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Spectral-domain Optical Coherence Tomography was performed in 541 patients with MS, including 45 with high-risk CIS, 403 with relapsing-remitting (RR)MS, 60 with secondary-progressive (SP)MS and 33 with primary-progressive (PP)MS, and 53 unaffected controls. Differences in retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness and macular volume were analyzed using multiple linear regression and associations with age and disease duration were examined in a cross-sectional analysis. In eyes without a clinical history of optic neuritis (designated as "eyes without optic neuritis"), the total and temporal peripapillary RNFL was thinner in CIS patients compared to controls (temporal RNFL by -5.4 µm [95% CI -0.9 to -9.9 µm, p = 0.02] adjusting for age and sex). The total (p = 0.01) and temporal (p = 0.03) RNFL was also thinner in CIS patients with clinical disease for less than 1 year compared to controls. In eyes without optic neuritis, total and temporal RNFL thickness was nearly identical between primary and secondary progressive MS, but total macular volume was slightly lower in the primary progressive group (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Retinal axonal loss is increasingly prominent in more advanced stages of disease - progressive MS>RRMS>CIS - with proportionally greater thinning in eyes previously affected by clinically evident optic neuritis. Retinal axonal loss begins early in the course of MS. In the absence of clinically evident optic neuritis, RNFL thinning is nearly identical between progressive MS subtypes.




When you have inflammation in the optic nerve or the eye, damage to the nerve cell bodies in the retina that have processes that project into brain occurs. This occurs irrespective of whether you are diagnoses with optic neuritis or not, but if you have had optic neuritis this damage is more prominent. We are using this as an outcome to monitor progression in clinical trials and have devices that can monitor this even in mice. This was recently used to show promise of a drug to slow progression.

Multiple Sclerosis Research: Research: stopping progression ..., 28 May 2012

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