Multiple Sclerosis, unceasing, gradually progressive autoimmune syndrome in which the body's immune structure attacks the shielding myelin sheaths that encase the nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord a progression called demyelination, resulting in injured areas that are unable to transmit nerve impulses. The syndrome also progressively damages the nerves themselves. There are eminent figures of lymphocytes in the cerebral spinal fluid and of T cells in the blood.
The commencement of Multiple Sclerosis is usually at age 20 to 40 years, and its many symptoms affect almost every system of the body. There may be visual difficulties, emotional disturbances, speech disorders, convulsions, paralysis or numbness of various regions of the body, bladder disturbances, and muscular weakness. The course of the disease varies greatly from person to person. In some patients, the symptoms remit and return, sometimes at frequent intervals and sometimes after several years. In others the disease progresses steadily.
There is a genetic predisposition to Multiple Sclerosis, and environmental factors also seem to play some role. The disease is more common in temperate climates 1:2,000 than in the tropics 1:10,000.
There is no cure for Multiple Sclerosis, but three drugs—all of which first became available in the 1990s—can slow its underlying progress and reduce the frequency of attacks. These are Avonex and Betaseron, both forms of beta interferon a synthetic version of a natural substance produced by the immune system, and Copaxone.
Multiple sclerosis is the most common demyelinating disease of the central nervous system in the United States and most temperate zones of the world. At the anatomical level, Multiple sclerosis is “characterized by the sporadic occurrence of multiple "plaques" or lesions of inflammation in the white matter of the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves separated both in location...............
