Demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system in children: lecture for practicing pediatricians

Abstract

Demyelinating diseases (DD) are autoimmune disorders that morphologically manifest mainly with myelin destruction in the central nervous system (CNS). Recently, there has been a continuous increase in DD of the CNS, including those in the pediatric population. Despite the active development of strategies for the diagnosis of DD and verification of its forms, the differential diagnosis of DD and other diseases associated with abnormalities in the brain white matter structure on magnetic resonance imaging continues to be problematic. We examined 123 patients with suspected DD CNS. The diagnosis was confirmed in 102 of them. The most common form of DD CNS was multiple sclerosis found in 79 of 102 subjects. Much less frequent were anti-MOG-associated disorders (5 patients), neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (3 patients), and acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (2 patients). The main clinical, laboratory and neuroimaging characteristics of each of these disorders and the main difficulties in the treatment of pediatric patients with DD CNS are described.

Keywords

• demyelination
• children
• multiple sclerosis
• neuromyelitis optica
• anti-mog