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Improvement in Conduction Velocity after Optic Neuritis Measured with the Multifocal VEP

¹From the Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York; and the ²Department of Ophthalmology, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York.

PURPOSE. To test the efficacy of the multifocal visual evoked potential (mfVEP) technique after long-term latency changes in optic neuritis (ON)/multiple sclerosis (MS), mfVEPs were recorded in 12 patients with ON/MS.

METHODS. Sixty local VEP responses were recorded simultaneously. mfVEP was recorded from both eyes of 12 patients with ON/MS. Patients were tested twice after recovery from acute ON episodes, which occurred in 14 of the 24 eyes. After recovery, all eyes had 20/20 or better visual acuity and normal visual fields as measured with static automated perimetry (SAP). The time between the two postrecovery tests varied from 6 to 56 months. Between test days, the visual fields obtained with SAP remained normal.

RESULTS. Ten of the 14 affected eyes showed improvement in median latency on the mfVEP. Six of these eyes fell at or below (improved latency) the 96% confidence interval for the control eyes. None of the 10 initially unaffected eyes fell below the 96% lower limit. Although the improvement was widespread across the field, it did not include all regions. For the six eyes showing clear improvement, on average, 78% of the points had latencies that were shorter on test 2 than on test 1.

CONCLUSIONS. A substantial percentage of ON/MS patients show a long-term improvement in conduction velocity. Because this improvement can be local, the mfVEP should allow these improvements to be monitored in patients with ON/MS.

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