The Efficacy of Pulse Therapy in Acute Relapse in Multiple Sclerosis Patients: Clinical and Neurophysiology Study.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the Central Nervous System (CNS) with a variety of clinical presentations MS affects 2.5 million people worldwide. The profound heterogeneity of MS is not limited to the Symptoms but to neuroradiologic and histologic appearances of lesions and response to therapy.

The terms 'acute attack', 'acute exacerbations', and 'relapses' are used interchangeably and refer to the onset or worsening of neurologic deficits lasting ≥24 hours in the absence of fever or infection. Glucocorticoids are used as first-line treatment for attacks as they provide short-term clinical benefits by reducing the severity and shortening the duration of attacks. Typically, intravenous (IV) methylprednisolone 1 g/day for 3-5 days is given, often followed by an oral course of prednisone beginning at a dose of 60-80 mg/day and then tapered over 2 weeks. Other glucocorticoid considerations are dexamethasone1 and high-dose oral prednisone which appear to be equally effective.

Studies using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) have repeatedly reported white-matter involvement in patients with MS as documented by the prolonged central motor conduction time (CMCT), which can differentiate patients with secondary progressive MS (SPMS) from those with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), but didn't correlate with severity or degree of improved motor function after corticosteroid therapy. Also, paired-pulse TMS, when delivered at short interstimulus intervals (ISI) (3-5 ms), the conditioned motor evoked potential (MEP) decreases in amplitude (intracortical inhibition, ICI); besides rMT, AMT, Transcallosal inhibition (TCI)and cortical silent period (CSP).

Previously, electrophysiological and clinical evaluations were performed at the onset of therapy and after the end of treatment using an arbitrary evoked potentials score that found evoked potentials may be useful for monitoring acute Multiple Sclerosis bouts and evaluating the effect of therapy.

However, it is difficult to search for an objective marker of the clinical course, in addition no studies were conducted to evaluate the efficacy and underlying mechanism of pulse therapy on clinical course and outcome of relapsing MS and correlating with these recording changes ( pre and post-pulse therapy) in electrophysiological(both evoked potentials and TMS) studies in relapsing MS. Thus the investigator will conduct this study to understand the mechanism of action of pulse therapy on clinical course and recovery of relapsing MS on short term.