Table 1.
Demographics.
Table 2.
RNFL Thickness and Macular Volume by MS Stage and Subtype.
Figure 1.
Retinal Axonal Degeneration in Multiple Sclerosis is Increasingly Prominent in More Advanced Stages of Disease and Proportionally Greater in Eyes Previously Affected by Symptomatic Optic Neuritis.
Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer thickness (A, B, C) and macular volume (D), as measured by spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (Heidelberg Spectralis) in a cross sectional sample of patients with high-risk Clinically Isolated Syndromes (CIS) (n = 45), Relapsing-Remitting MS (RRMS) (n = 403), Secondary-Progressive MS (SPMS) (n = 60), Primary-Progressive MS (PPMS) (n = 33) and unaffected controls (n = 54). Both the total and temporal peripapillary RNFL were thinner in CIS patients compared to controls in eyes without prior symptomatic optic neuritis. RNFL measures were nearly identical between SPMS and PPMS patients in eyes without optic neuritis, but macular volumes were lower in PPMS compared to SPMS patients in eyes without optic neuritis (p<0.05). The black dots denote the median, and the bars signify the interquartile range. *p<0.05, **p<0.001 refers to the comparison with unaffected controls using linear regression to adjust for age and sex.
Figure 2.
Associations of Temporal Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer Thickness by Disease Stage and Subtype with Age and Disease Duration in MS.
Temporal quadrant peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness by age (A) and disease duration (B) in MS patients in eyes without a history of symptomatic optic neuritis. Note that temporal RNFL thickness is nearly identical between patients with primary and secondary progressive MS, but disease durations tend to be greater in SPMS and shorter in PPMS for the same degree of RNFL loss. The solid line indicates the slope as fitted by linear regression, and the dotted lines denote 95% confidence intervals. CIS = Clinically Isolated Syndrome; RRMS = Relapsing-Remitting MS; PPMS = Primary Progressive MS; SPMS = Secondary Progressive MS.