No abstract

Pain after stroke is more frequent in the subacute and chronic phase than in the acute phase, but it is still largely undertreated.

We studied repeated cerebrospinal fluids of patients with Devic's neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and multiple sclerosis (MS). Variations of oligoclonal bands (OBs) had opposite trends in the two groups. In MS, OBs were detected in 399 of 411 patients (97%) and never disappeared. In NMO, OBs were detected in three of 11 patients (27%) and always disappeared. The hypothesis that NMO and MS follow distinct pathogenetic pathways is supported by our findings, which can be useful for the differentiation of NMO from MS.