background: disability is the most important determinants of disease course, treatment and rehabilitation outcomes and consequently the quality of life in patients with multiple sclerosis. the aim of the present study was to determine the relationship of disability and quality of life in multiple sclerosis patients.   methods: this cross-sectional study was performed on 325 patients referred to...

BACKGROUND Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is an inflammatory disease with combined features of optic neuritis and myelitis. This pathologic entity may induce severe disability, including visual loss and paraplegia. Other than clinical follow-up, there is no marker for severity of the disease. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) in NMO and to determine whether this...

Tecfidera has been shown to be of benefit in relapsing multiple sclerosis in two Phase III clinical trials. In the DEFINE trial, the medication produced a 49% reduction in the proportion of people who experienced relapses over 2 years, and had a similar significant impact on disease activity detected on MRI., This resulted in a 38% reduction in the risk of confirmed progression of disability as...

BACKGROUND What currently appears to be irreversible axonal loss in normal appearing white matter, measured by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy is of great interest in the study of Multiple Sclerosis. Our aim is to determine the axonal damage in normal appearing white matter measured by magnetic resonance spectroscopy and to correlate this with the functional disability measured by Multip...

Previous studies suggested that increased activity of haem oxygenase 1 may ameliorate autoimmune neuroinflammation in experimental models of multiple sclerosis. This increased activity is associated with an augmented number of GT repeats (≥ 25) within the HMOX1 gene promoter. Here we examined 338 patients with multiple sclerosis to determine the influence of their HMOX1 gene promoter (GT)n poly...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE The risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) as well as MS disease activity is associated with vitamin D (25(OH)D) status. The relationship between the main functional disability hallmark of MS, disability progression, and 25(OH)D status is less well established though, especially not in MS patients with progressive disease. METHODS This retrospective follow-up stud...

Background and objective Study evaluating Betaferon(R)'s safety and tolerability in paediatric patients with multiple sclerosis (BETAPAEDIC) is a prospective, open-label observational multicentre study to assess the safety and effectiveness of interferon beta-1b in paediatric patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Methods Treatment-naïve patients (12-16 years) scheduled to star...

OBJECTIVES To develop a model of disease progression using multiple sclerosis (MS) as an exemplar. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTINGS Two observational cohorts, the University of Wales MS (UoWMS), UK (1976), and British Columbia MS (BCMS) database, Canada (1980), with longitudinal disability data [the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS)] were used; individuals potentially eligible for MS disease-m...

Wind is a promising sustainable energy resource that can help in reducing the dependence on fossil fuels. Models and tools can be effectively used to assess the resource availability, the possible exploitation, and the environmental impact. The aim of this work is to propose an Environmental Decision Support System (EDSS) for the sustainable design of wind power plants both in terms of the site...