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. 2012:2012:530305.
doi: 10.1155/2012/530305. Epub 2012 Jul 25.

Retinal damage in multiple sclerosis disease subtypes measured by high-resolution optical coherence tomography

Timm Oberwahrenbrock  1 , Sven Schippling, Marius Ringelstein, Falko Kaufhold, Hanna Zimmermann, Nazmiye Keser, Kim Lea Young, Jens Harmel, Hans-Peter Hartung, Roland Martin, Friedemann Paul, Orhan Aktas, Alexander U Brandt
Affiliations

Retinal damage in multiple sclerosis disease subtypes measured by high-resolution optical coherence tomography

Timm Oberwahrenbrock et al. Mult Scler Int. 2012.

Abstract

Background. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has facilitated characterisation of retinal alterations in MS patients. Only scarce and in part conflicting data exists on different MS subtypes. Objective. To analyse patterns of retinal changes in different subtypes of MS with latest spectral-domain technology. Methods. In a three-centre cross-sectional study 414 MS patients and 94 healthy controls underwent spectral-domain OCT examination. Results. Eyes of MS patients without a previous optic neuritis showed a significant reduction of both retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) thickness and total macular volume (TMV) compared to healthy controls independent of the MS subtype (P < 0.001 for all subtypes). RNFL thickness was lower in secondary progressive MS (SPMS) eyes compared to relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) eyes (P = 0.007), and TMV was reduced in SPMS and primary progressive MS (PPMS) eyes compared to RRMS eyes (SPMS: P = 0.039, PPMS: P = 0.005). Independent of the subtype a more pronounced RNFL thinning and TMV reduction were found in eyes with a previous optic neuritis compared to unaffected eyes. Conclusion. Analysis of this large-scale cross-sectional dataset of MS patients studied with spectral-domain OCT confirmed and allows to generalize previous findings. Furthermore it carves out distinct patterns in different MS subtypes.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mean retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) thickness (a) and mean total macular volume (TMV) (b) for the healthy controls (HC) and MS subtypes (RRMS, SPMS, and PPMS) without a history of optic neuritis (NON). Significant differences between the groups are indicated with *(P < 0.05), **(P < 0.01), and ***(P < 0.001), respectively.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) thickness (a) and mean total macular volume (TMV) (b) for the healthy controls (HC) and MS subtypes (RRMS, SPMS) with a history of optic neuritis (ON). Significant differences between the groups are indicated with *(P < 0.05), **(P < 0.01), and ***(P < 0.001), respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Association of RNFL thickness (a) and TMV (b) with disease duration for RRMS, SPMS and PPMS subtypes in eyes without previous optic neuritis. The blue lines indicate the 95%-, 50%- and 5%-quantiles.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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