Genetikk og MR hos MS-pasienter

Abstract

MS is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system that mainly affects young adults. The prognoses varies, but many patients become severely disabled. The available treatment for patients today is not optimal due to the lack of understanding of disease etiology. Nowadays we believe that MS is an autoimmune, multifactorial disease with both environmental and genetic factors playing a part in disease development. Recent studies have been able to map multiple genes associated with the disease. In this paper I compared genetic information with MRI taken of MS patients. The patients were chosen from Oslo MS-register where each patient is assigned a MSGB-score (Multiple Sclerosis Genetic Burden). MSGB is an estimate of each patients total genetic susceptibility to MS. I compared MRI-findings in a group with high MSGB-scores with a group with low MSGB-scores, my hypothesis being that the group with high MSGB will be more prone to a higher severity of disease and thus have more pathological findings in MRI. The results showed that there where taken more MRI s per patient in the group with low MSGB, which might indicate more serious illness here. However, the findings of atrophy in MRI where higher in the group with high MSGB, which indicate more severe illness in this group. There were no significant differences between the groups in findings of white matter lesions, enhanced lesions or in general assessment of progression of the disease. Thus, most of my findings indicate no substantial difference between the two groups.