What Researchers Did
Researchers serially obtained multimodal evoked potentials from 57 patients with chronic multiple sclerosis in a double-blind, controlled study evaluating hyperbaric oxygen treatment.
What They Found
In this study of 57 patients, researchers found significant drawbacks in using multimodal evoked potentials (EPs) to monitor the effects of hyperbaric oxygen treatment for chronic multiple sclerosis. These drawbacks included an arduous testing protocol, a significant occurrence of ambiguous and unreproducible results, and poor correspondence between EP changes and clinical function.
What This Means for Canadian Patients
This study suggests that multimodal evoked potentials may not be a reliable or practical tool for monitoring the effectiveness of treatments for chronic multiple sclerosis in Canadian patients. Clinicians should consider these significant limitations when interpreting EP results in the context of treatment response for MS.
Canadian Relevance
This study has no direct Canadian connection.
Study Limitations
The study's main limitations include the arduous nature of the evoked potential testing protocol, significant unreproducible results, and poor correlation between EP changes and clinical function.