Multi-focal visual evoked potentials in patients with multiple sclerosis and optic neuritis

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that multi-focal visual evoked potentials (MFVEP) could serve additionally to full-field visual evoked potentials (FFVEP) for detecting optic neuritis (ON) abnormalities in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). We evaluated FFVEP and MFVEP in patients with MS, with and without ON, in comparison to healthy controls.METHODS: We included 81 participants, namely 49 patients with MS and 32 healthy controls. FFVEP and MFVEP amplitude and peak time were recorded in 36 eyes of patients with MS and ON, in 41 eyes of patients with MS without ON, and 32 control eyes.RESULTS: The FFVEP amplitude was lower in MS with ON, whereas FFVEP peak time was higher in MS with ON eyes, compared to controls. The mean MFVEP amplitude was lower in MS with ON eyes compared to controls. The MFVEP peak times were higher in MS with ON eyes, whereas in MS without ON eyes, peak times were higher compared to controls. MFVEP detected abnormal amplitudes in 28(78%) of MS with ON eyes and 30(73%) in MS without ON eyes, whereas detected abnormal peak times in 31(86%) of MS with ON eyes and 33(80%) in MS without ON eyes, showing a better performance compared to FFVEP in detecting eyes with abnormal amplitude, or peak time.CONCLUSIONS: In MS patients, FFVEP and MFVEP amplitude and peak time recordings could reveal disorders in eyes both with and without ON. MFVEP showed better diagnostic accuracy in detecting abnormalities in amplitude and peak time compared to FFVEP.