Multimodal Evoked Potentialsin Follow-up of Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis With lnterferon Beta-1 a

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease which causes disability and economical burdenin young adults . lnterferon beta has been the fırst regulator of biological response and both inteferon beta-1 a and interferon beta-1 b reduce MS attack frequency and magnetic resonance imaging (MRl)-determined cumulative disease burden. It has beenshowed that the frequency and severity of evoked potential abnormalities increase with disease duration and with the increase in disability. in the recent study, visual and somatosensory evoked potentials that detect the involvement better have been examinedin MS patients taking recombinant human interferon beta-1 a (Rebif ™). it is aimed ta evaluate changes in central nervous system functions objectively and ta assess whether clinical status shows parallelism to electrophysiological fındings. 10 (one maleand 9 female) patients were examined. Six million IU interferon beta-1 a was given to all patients far 9 months, subcutaneously. Clinical evaluation and EP studies were performed before the treatment and in the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 9th months during the therapy.The mean age of the cases was 32.29±5.4 5 years, mean disease duration was 2.44±0.6 1 years,mean EDSS score at onset was 2.20±0.41, mean attack rate in the last two years was 2.06±0. 90. No difference in mean latency of VEP P 100 was shownbefore ( 122 msec) and at the 9th month ( 120 msec) during the therapy (p>0.05). No statistical difference was observed in mean latency of median and fibular SEP, N20 and P2 7 components respectively before (N20: 21.4 msec, P2 7: 41 .5 msec) and at the 9th month (N20: 21.4 msec, P2 7: 38.3 msec) during the therapy (p>0.05). İn this preliminarystudy, it has been suggested that these fıngdings may be considered as a positive effect of interferon beta-1 a thrapy.