Worsening on T25FW or 9HPT has a clinical impact on disability, as perceived by MS patients during daily life functioning.

Presence of SC lesions facilitates diagnosing MS and is predictive for conversion to CDMS, especially in patients with nonspinal CIS who do not fulfill brain MRI criteria. We therefore recommend performing an SC scan in patients with nonspinal CIS who do not fulfill McDonald brain MRI criteria.

Using high-throughput body fluid profiling by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, small proteins and peptides were detected as promising candidate biomarkers for diagnosis and disease progression of MS.

Retrospectively, we assessed the specificity of two proposed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) criteria for multiple sclerosis (MS) in patients suspected to have MS but who ultimately receive another diagnosis. Brain MRIs of 28 patients mixed with 28 MRIs of MS patients from the same cohort of 377 consecutively referred patients were scored by a neuroradiologist masked to the final diagnosis. The criteria for dissemination in space incorporated in the McDonald International Panel showed good specificity (89%). However, the more sensitive criteria proposed by a Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology resulted in a lower specificity (29%), indicating an increased risk of a false-positive diagnosis.

No abstract

Our results indicate that a 0.5 point EDSS change in patients with baseline EDSS > or = 6.0 cannot be considered equal to a 1.0 point change in patients with baseline EDSS < or = 5.5.

When assessing disease progression in MS, sensitivity to change can be increased by combining different outcome measures. The added value is especially present when combining measures from different perspectives. However, further research is needed to evaluate the optimal way to combine outcome measures before implementing this strategy in clinical studies.

Background: To diagnose multiple sclerosis (MS), evidence for dissemination in space and time is required. There is no clear definition on how symptoms and signs of a patient indicate clinical dissemination in space. To provide a uniform approach on this subject, a clinical classification system was described recently differentiating patients with mono-and multifocal clinical presentation. Here we assess the predictive value of clinically defined dissemination in space at first presentation for time to clinically definite MS (CDMS).