Novel uses of retinal imaging with optical coherence tomography in multiple sclerosis

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common chronic autoimmune neuroinflammatory condition in young adults. It is often accompanied by optic neuritis (ON) and retinal neuro-axonal damage causing visual disturbances. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a sensitive non-invasive method for quantifying intraretinal layer volumes. Recently, OCT not only showed to be a reliable marker for ON-associated damage, but also proved its high prognostic value for functional outcome and disability accrual in patients with MS. Consequently, OCT is discussed as a potential marker for monitoring disease severity and therapeutic response in individual patients.

Areas covered: This article summarizes our current understanding of structural retinal changes in MS and describes the future potential of OCT for differential diagnosis, monitoring of the disease course and for clinical trials.

Expert commentary: Today, OCT is used in clinical practice in specialized MS centers. Standardized parameters across devices are urgently needed for supporting clinical utility. Novel parameters are desirable to increase sensitivity and specificity in terms of MS.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiple sclerosis
• tomography
• optical coherence
• optic neuritis
• retina
• disease progression
• vision disorders

Declaration of interest

FC Oertel was an employee of Nocturne UG. F Paul reports research grants and speaker honoraria from Bayer, Teva, Genzyme, Merck, Novartis, MedImmune and is member of the steering committee of the OCTIMS study (Novartis). H Zimmermann reports grants from Novartis. AU Brandt is founder and holds shares of Motognosis. He is named as inventor on several patent applications describing serum biomarkers for multiple sclerosis, perceptive visual computing for tracking of motor dysfunction and OCT image analysis. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial relationships or otherwise to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

The project was supported with grants from the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF/KKNMS; Competence Network Multiple Sclerosis (to F Paul), from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, grant Exc. 257 to F Paul, AU Brandt), from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (EXIST 03EFEBE079 to AU Brandt), from the German Ministry of Education and Research (N2-ADVISIMS16GW0079 to F Paul and AU Brandt), from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (to F Paul), from the Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation (to F Paul, AU Brandt) and from Novartis (to H Zimmermann)