MS Suspected? Vision Tests Helpful

Some clinical diagnoses are remarkably straightforward. For example, sudden pain in the right lower belly with nausea and an elevated white cell count is indicative for acute appendicitis. Yes, there are exceptions but most of the time it’s the appendix.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is very different. It is a subtle, insidious autoimmune disorder that slowly destroys the myelin in your nervous system. The ‘hotspot’ on this brain scan illustrates a MS plaque. No two MS patients are the same, nor is their clinical course. It runs the spectrum from mild to wild.

Since no doctor wants to rush to label a patient with a potentially life-threatening demyelinating neurologic disorder, it may take months or years before a diagnosis can be established with confidence. Such a delay can postpone treatment opportunities and therapeutic options.

Did you know that eye symptoms are among the earliest changes that affect MS patients?

Vision specialists at Houston-based MS Eye Care (a collaborative research center) have identified four vision tests that, when combined, offer very useful predictive information regarding the presence of multiple sclerosis.

Families worried about a loved one’s prospects for having MS might ask their local doctors about ordering these painless, noninvasive tests:

Visual evoked potential
Multifocal visual evoked potential
Optical coherence tomography
Visual fields

These experts suggest that obtaining the complete panel of tests at one time can help to promptly identify (or exclude) possible MS suspects. Should symptoms persist or progress these baseline tests become very valuable in determining if any measurable change in vision function has occurred.

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, 01/02/2006