Visual pathways involvement in multiple sclerosis from pathological process to neuro-ophthalmologic assessment

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating disease associated with a myriad of visual pathways pathology. These pathologies need to be assessed, even when asymptomatic, because they may represent an important index of disease course, severity and treatment response. This is a review of the importance of different visual pathways assessment methods such as classic ophthalmologic examination, cerebrospinal fluid analysis, Doppler ultrasonography of the orbital vessels, magnetic resonance imaging, optical coherence tomography, visual evoked potential, evaluating which may contribute to elucidate the pathophysiological process, structural and functional damage. The modern medical technology developed multiple methods which are trying to link their results to the overall brain damage in MS. A global analysis of these methods is needed, in order to a better evaluation of visual pathways damage associated with multiple sclerosis.

Keywords

• multiple sclerosis
• visual pathways
• optical coherence tomography
• visual evoked potentials