Changes in Retinal Thickness and Brain Volume during 6.8-Year Escalating Therapy for Multiple Sclerosis

Table 2

Results of clinical data and OCT parameters over time.

	Baseline (untreated)	1st-line DMT	High-efficacy DMT
Patients	12 (66.7)	18 (100)	18 (100)
Follow-up duration, years	0.25 (0.02–0.52)	2.42 (1.17–8.44)	2.92 (1.77–5.35)
EDSS	0.75 (0.00–1.00)	0.86 (0.32-1.13)	0.44 (0.00–1.50)
MSSS	1.34 (0.52-3.06)	0.75 (0.36-2.23)	0.70 (0.17-1.38)
MR findings
Total brain lesions	14 (4-20)^1	19 (7-22)^1	19 (10-23)^1
Gd lesions	7 (53.8)	4 (22.2)	0(0.0)^2
Periventricular lesions	12 (100)	18 (100)	18 (100)
Juxtacortical lesions	10 (83.3)	16 (88.9)	15 (83.3)
Infratentorial lesions	4 (33.3)	7 (38.9)	8 (44.4)
Spinal cord lesions	10 (83.3)	15 (83.3)	15 (83.3)
BPF			^3
OCT measures
GCIPL, μm		^4	^4
pRNFL, μm

Abbreviations: NA: not applicable; DMT: disease-modifying treatment; EDSS: expanded disability status scale; MSSS: multiple sclerosis severity score; gd: gadolinium; BPF: brain parenchymal fraction; OCT: optical coherence tomography; GCIPL: ganglion cell inner-plexiform layer; pRNFL: peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer. Values are (%), , or median (interquartile range). ¹Total brain lesions: Friedman’s test (). ²Gd lesions: Cochran’s test: pairwise comparison by McNemar’s test: baseline vs. high-efficacy DMT (). ³BPF: paired samples -test (). ⁴GCIPL: repeated measures ANOVA: post hoc pairwise comparison (Bonferroni corrected): baseline vs. 1^st-line DMT (), baseline vs. high-efficacy DMT ().