Using Acute Optic Neuritis Trials to Assess Neuroprotective and Remyelinating Therapies in Multiple Sclerosis.

Importance: Neuroprotective and remyelinating therapies are required for multiple sclerosis (MS), and acute optic neuritis (AON) is a potential condition to evaluate such treatments.

Objective: To comprehensively assess key biological and methodological aspects of AON trials for testing neuroprotection and remyelination in MS.

Design, Setting, And Participants: The AON-VisualPath prospective cohort study was conducted from February 2011 to November 2018 at the Hospital Clinic of University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.

Dynamics of retinal injury after acute optic neuritis.

Objective: We set out to assess the dynamics of retinal injury after acute optic neuritis (ON) and their association with clinical visual outcomes.

Methods: Thirty-one consecutive patients with acute ON were prospectively analyzed over a 6-month follow-up period. Each month, we used optical coherence tomography (OCT) to assess the thickness of peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (pRNFL) and segmented macular layers, as well as high-contrast visual acuity, low-contrast visual acuity (LCVA), color visual acuity (CVA), and visual fields (VF).

The multiple sclerosis visual pathway cohort: understanding neurodegeneration in MS.

Background: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an immune-mediated disease of the Central Nervous System with two major underlying etiopathogenic processes: inflammation and neurodegeneration. The latter determines the prognosis of this disease. MS is the main cause of non-traumatic disability in middle-aged populations.

Colour vision impairment is associated with disease severity in multiple sclerosis.

Background: Colour vision assessment correlates with damage of the visual pathway and might be informative of overall brain damage in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Objective: The objective of this paper is to investigate the association between impaired colour vision and disease severity.

Methods: We performed neurological and ophthalmic examinations, as well as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) analyses, on 108 MS patients, both at baseline and after a follow-up of one year.

Trans-synaptic axonal degeneration in the visual pathway in multiple sclerosis.

Objective: To evaluate the association between the damage to the anterior and posterior visual pathway as evidence of the presence of retrograde and anterograde trans-synaptic degeneration in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Methods: We performed a longitudinal evaluation on a cohort of 100 patients with MS, acquiring retinal optical coherence tomography to measure anterior visual pathway damage (peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer [RNFL] thickness and macular volume) and 3T brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for posterior visual pathway damage (volumetry and spectroscopy of visual cortex, lesion volume within optic radiations) at inclusion and after 1 year. Freesurfer and SPM8 software was used for MRI analysis.

Retinal periphlebitis is associated with multiple sclerosis severity.

Objectives: To assess the association of primary retinal inflammation, namely retinal periphlebitis (RP) and microcystic macular edema, with clinical, brain, and retinal imaging biomarkers of multiple sclerosis (MS) severity.

Methods: One hundred patients with MS underwent a neurologic and ophthalmic examination, MRI, and optical coherence tomography. Disability was assessed using the Expanded Disability Status Scale at baseline and after a 1-year follow-up.