STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL CHANGES OF OPTIC NERVE IN MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS PATIENTS

Abstract

Background: Transorbital ultrasound (TOS) is a promising tool for identification and monitor of structural changes in optic nerve in multiple sclerosis patients (MS).

Aim: To assess the functional and structural alterations of the optic nerve utilizing transorbital ultrasound (TOS) and visual evoked potentials (VEP), as potential neuroaxonal damage markers in RRMS.

Subjects and methods: This case-control comparative research has been performed on 90 Egyptian subjects, 50 of them were patients and 40 individuals were healthy controls. Optic nerve sheath diameter (ONSD), and optic nerve diameter (OND) their ratio have been determined using TOS. P100 latency was measured by VEP.

Results: A statistically significant variance has been observed among patients (whether they had a history of optic neuritis or not) and controls regarding OND, ONSD, OND/ONSD and P100 latency. There was a statistically significant variance among cases with EDSS ≤2 and patients with EDSS >2 regarding different study parameters.

Conclusion: VEP and transorbital ultrasound differentiated multiple sclerosis cases from control. They also discriminated patients with history of optic neuritis from those without it, proposing that these methods are sensitive enough to identify functional and structural alterations formed in the optic nerve in RRMS.