engleski

Tongue somatosensory evoked potentials : evaluation of the afferent trigeminal pathway in patients with early multiple sclerosis

The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of tongue somatosensory evoked potentials (tSSEP) in evaluation of afferent trigeminal pathway in patients with early multiple sclerosis (MS). tSSEP was performed on ten healthy volunteers and 10 patients with the first symptom of MS. Obtained data were compared between groups, and tSSEP findings of MS patients were correlated with clinical and MRI data. Out of the 10 patients 2 (20%) had clinically evident involvement of the brainstem, 5 (50%) had brainstem lesions on the brain MRI, while 9 (90%) patients had prolonged latencies on tSSEP. Seven out of 8 patients with no clinical evidence of brainstem pathology (88%) had prolonged latencies/conduction block on tSSEP. MS patients had statistically significant prolongation of N1, P1 and N2 latencies for stimulation of the right side and N2 latency for stimulation of the left side comparing to healthy controls. tSSEP is efficient method for evaluating the afferent trigeminal pathway in patients with early multiple sclerosis. Significance: This study provides evidence that lesions of the afferent trigeminal pathway evaluated by tSSEP are more frequent when comparing to clinical examination and MRI.

tongue somatosensory evoked potentials; trigeminal afferent pathway; multiple sclerosis

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