United States – Two signs that could emerge shortly after an individual is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) could indicate how aggressively the disease will progress and the best course of action, according to a new study.
Crucial Insights for Treatment Decisions
Two asymptomatics: deterioration of vision and SPh of the bladder and/or bowels may manifest in some, though not all, patients at the early stages of the disease.
When they arise so soon, patients “may be at higher risk for developing more severe disability over time,” said the study leader Dr. João Pedro Gonçalves of the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil, as reported by HealthDay.
“This information could be crucial for healthcare providers in determining initial treatment strategies and monitoring protocols,” he explained.
Long-Term Impact of Initial Symptoms
In the new study, 195 MS patients were recruited whose initial symptoms were recorded by the researchers themselves. Their later functional outcome was also measured using the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), a well standardized measure of disability in patients with MS.
Identifying patient groups with specific symptoms at diagnosis is an important step in understanding their possible functional outcome in the future; for instance, patients who complained of blurry vision at the beginning of their treatment received a worse long-term prognosis: their functional progress was 20% worse compared to patients without initial vision problems.
Still, patients with early sphincter dysfunction in their disease course were 24.5 percent more likely to become severely disabled at a later stage, according to the Brazilian researchers.
Contradictory Findings on Other Early Symptoms
Regarding two other symptoms that are considered to be early onset symptoms of stroke, namely acute paralysis, and hypoesthesia (numbness), do not affect the prognosis of stroke, an observation which obviously contradicts results from certain over arching studies according to Gonçalves’ team.
Need for Further Research
These studies also fail to explain why blurred vision and sphincter dysfunction predict more reflex-aggressive disease. One view is that such symptoms may indicate that more areas of the central nervous system were affected, the researchers pointed out, as reported by HealthDay.
Gonçalves said more research is required to understand how such new findings could be applied to changes in treatment pathways.