Opticospinal multiple sclerosis

Last revised by Rohit Sharma on 26 Mar 2019

Opticospinal multiple sclerosis (OSMS) is a demyelinating disease and has been considered a variant of multiple sclerosis (MS) encountered in Asian populations, who are generally rarely affected by normal multiple sclerosis. It has similar clinical and imaging features to neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and may in fact represent the same disease, in a different population 1,2.

The identification of anti-aquaporin 4 IgG antibodies in NMO has naturally lead to them being sought in patients with OSMS, with varying results, ranging form 35-90% 1. Although this higher than positive rates in patients with conventional MS, whether or not NMO and OSMS are the same disease remains to be fully elucidated.

As the imaging appearances are similar/identical, please refer to the article on neuromyelitis optica (NMO) for further details.

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