Ferreira Maria Lúcia Brito, Machado Maria Iris Morais, Dantas Maria José Guedes, Moreira Alvaro José Porto, Souza Adélia Maria de Miranda Henriques
Neurology Department, Centre for Attention to Patients with Demyelinating Diseases, Hospital da Restauração, Recife, PE, Brazil.
Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2008 Sep;66(3B):665-70. doi: 10.1590/s0004-282x2008000500011.
To describe the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of child/adolescence multiple sclerosis (MS).
According to a descriptive, cohort study, with comparison of groups, data of 31 cases of child/adolescent MS, diagnosed at State Reference Center for Demyelinating Diseases-Hospital da Restauração, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, from 1987 to July 2007, were analyzed. The variables were: sex, initial symptoms, time for diagnosis, time of disease onset (early childhood, later childhood and adolescence), time of follow-up, number of relapses, relapses index and disability. Using SPSS software, version 13.0, t Student and Mann-Whitney tests were performed, with significance level of 0.05.
There were 3 (9.7%) cases of early childhood MS, 9 (29%), of late childhood MS, and 19 (61.3%), of adolescence MS. The general sex rate female: male was 1.8:1, varying according to age of onset. The predominant deficits were motor (12; 38.7%) and brainstem/cerebellum (7; 22.5%) especially on subsequent relapses of relapsing/remitting form. Time for diagnosis and average relapses index were higher in early childhood than in adolescence class (p=0.049 and p=0.028, respectively). Disability was higher for primary and secondary MS, as well as for early childhood.
Early childhood MS presents proper and different characteristics from adults, consisting in a difficult diagnosis that demands aid of expert neurologist on MS.
