Somatosensory evoked potentials and magnetic resonance imaging of the central nervous system in early multiple sclerosis.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Wuschek, Alexander Bussas, Matthias El Husseini, Malek Harabacz, Laura Pineker, Viktor Pongratz, Viola Berthele, Achim Riederer, Isabelle Zimmer, Claus Hemmer, Bernhard Kirschke, Jan S. Mühlau, Mark
Abstract	BackgroundSomatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP) are still broadly used, although not explicitly recommended, for the diagnostic work-up of suspected multiple sclerosis (MS).ObjectiveTo relate disability, SSEP, and lesions on T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with early MS.MethodsIn this monocentric retrospective study, we analyzed a cohort of patients with relapsing–remitting MS or clinically isolated syndrome, with a maximum disease duration of two years, as well as with available data on the score at the expanded disability status scale (EDSS), on SSEP, on whole spinal cord (SC) MRI, and on brain MRI.ResultsComplete data of 161 patients were available. Tibial nerve SSEP (tSSEP) were less frequently abnormal than SC MRI (22% vs. 68%, p < 0.001). However, higher EDSS scores were significantly associated with abnormal tSSEP (median, 2.0 vs. 1.0; p = 0.001) but not with abnormal SC MRI (i.e., at least one lesion; median, 1.5 vs. 1.5; p = 0.7). Of the 35 patients with abnormal tSSEP, 32 had lesions on SC MRI, and 2 had corresponding lesions on brain MRI.ConclusionCompared to tSSEP, SC MRI is the more sensitive diagnostic biomarker regarding SC involvement. In early MS, lesions as detectable by T2-weighted MRI are the main driver of abnormal tSSEP. However, tSSEP were more closely associated with disability, which is compatible with a potential role of tSSEP as prognostic biomarker in complementation of MRI.
ISSN	03405354
Journal	Journal of Neurology
Volume Number	270
PubMed Central reference number	PMC9886619
Issue Number	2
PubMed reference number	36205793
e-ISSN	14321459
DOI	10.1007/s00415-022-11407-1
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publisher Date	2022-10-07
Publisher Place	Berlin/Heidelberg
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2022
Subject Keyword	MRI Evoked potentials Multiple sclerosis
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Neurology Neurology (clinical)