THURSDAY, July 30 (HealthDay News) -- Cognitive assessment tests and conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can predict future disease progression in patients with benign multiple sclerosis (B-MS), according to a study published online July 29 in Neurology.
Emilio Portaccio, M.D., of the University of Florence in Italy, and colleagues assessed 63 patients who had clinically-confirmed B-MS using the Rao's Brief Repeatable Neuropsychological Battery, the Stroop Test, and brain MRI and magnetization transfer imaging to assess the presence of lesions and normal-looking white matter. The patients were followed for a mean of five years, then re-evaluated for disease progression.
At five years, the researchers found that disease progression had occurred in 29 percent of patients who were reclassified as no longer benign. The risk factors for disease progression were male gender (hazard ratio, 2.9), number of failed neuropsychological tests (hazard ratio, 1.4) and T1-weighted lesions (hazard ratio, 1.3). Using follow-up and baseline data, the researchers were able to construct a model that predicted no longer benign status with 82 percent accuracy.
"The findings of Portaccio et al. bring to light the importance of a more comprehensive evaluation of patients with MS with a seemingly benign course of their disease and highlight the need for more research in this area," the authors of an accompanying editorial write.
Several of the study authors and one of the editorial authors reported the receipt of research grants and honoraria from pharmaceutical companies.
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