Defining the clinical course of multiple sclerosis: the 2013 revisions.

Neurology

From the Corinne Goldsmith Dickenson Center for Multiple Sclerosis (F.D.L., A.E.M.), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY; Scientific and Clinical Review Associates, LLC (S.C.R.), Salisbury, CT; The Mellen Center for MS Treatment and Research (J.A.C., R.J.F., R.A.R.), Cleveland Clinic, OH; the Department of Biostatistics (G.R.C.), University of Alabama at Birmingham; the Danish Multiple Sclerosis Center (P.S.S.), Department of Neurology, Copenhagen University Hospital Rigshospitalet, Denmark; University College London Institute of Neurology (A.J.T.), UK; the Department of Neurology (J.S.W., J.A.L.), University of Texas Health Sciences Center, Houston; the Department of Neurology (L.J.B.), New York University Langone Medical Center, New York; the Division of Neurology (B. Banwell), The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, PA; the Departments of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine (F.B.) and Neurology (C.H.P.), VU Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Research Programs Department (B. Bebo), National Multiple Sclerosis Society, New York, NY; the Department of Neurology (P.A.C.), The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD; Fédération de Neurologie (M.C.), CHU Hôpital Purpan, Toulouse, France; the Department of Neurology (G.C.), Scientific Institute San Raffaele, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy; University of Ottawa and the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (M.S.F.), Canada; the Department of Neurology (A.D.G.), University of Rochester Medical Center, NY; the Departments of Neurology, Radiology and Neuroscience (M.I.), Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY; the Department of Neurology (L.K.), University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland; the Department of Neurology (B.C.K.), Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany; the Department of Neurology (C.L.), Salpêtrière Hospital, UPMC, Paris, France; the Department of Neurology-Neuroimmunology (X.M.), Cemcat, Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron, Barcelona, Spain; the Division of

Published: July 2014

Accurate clinical descriptions of multiple sclerosis (MS) are crucial for effective communication, prognosis, clinical trial design, and treatment decisions.
The International Advisory Committee on Clinical Trials of MS has re-evaluated disease phenotypes due to advancements in understanding MS that may not be captured by the 1996 standardized descriptors.
Proposed refined descriptors now consider disease activity and progression, while highlighting the need for improved research on imaging and biological markers for better phenotype classification.

Accurate clinical course descriptions (phenotypes) of multiple sclerosis (MS) are important for communication, prognostication, design and recruitment of clinical trials, and treatment decision-making. Standardized descriptions published in 1996 based on a survey of international MS experts provided purely clinical phenotypes based on data and consensus at that time, but imaging and biological correlates were lacking. Increased understanding of MS and its pathology, coupled with general concern that the original descriptors may not adequately reflect more recently identified clinical aspects of the disease, prompted a re-examination of MS disease phenotypes by the International Advisory Committee on Clinical Trials of MS. While imaging and biological markers that might provide objective criteria for separating clinical phenotypes are lacking, we propose refined descriptors that include consideration of disease activity (based on clinical relapse rate and imaging findings) and disease progression. Strategies for future research to better define phenotypes are also outlined.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4117366	PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000000560	DOI Listing

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