Auditory evoked potentials in children and adolescents with multiple sclerosis and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders

Abstract

Background: In children, an acute demyelinating disease may evolve as a multiphasic disease with multiple relapses, such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD). The Brainstem Auditory Evoked Potentials (BAEP) and Long-Latency Auditory Evoked Potentials (LLAEP) contribute to the identification of either retrocochlear changes or other central auditory nervous system (CANS) changes.

Objectives: To characterize BAEP and LLAEP in children and adolescents with MS and NMOSD and verify the diagnostic values of these potentials in each of the demyelinating diseases.

Methods: The 40 participants were divided into two study groups (SG1 - MS, SG2 - NMOSD) and two comparison groups (CG1 and CG2), matched for age (9 years-17 years and 11 months) and sex. Electrophysiological hearing assessment was performed with BAEP and LLAEP.

Results: When SG1 and SG2 were compared with CG1 and CG2 regarding BAEP and LLAEP, both SG1 and SG2 presented a higher occurrence of changes. Also, individuals with MS had higher occurrences of BAEP changes, whereas individuals with NMOSD had a higher occurrence of LLAEP changes.

Conclusions: BAEP and LLAEP in children and adolescents with MS or NMOSD showed higher latencies and lower amplitudes of some components when these individuals were compared with their peers. These procedures were highly accurate to identify demyelinating diseases. BAEP results were more abnormal in individuals with MS, while LLAEP was so with NMOSD. These findings indicate that the auditory evoked potentials are important instruments for the differential diagnosis of MS and NMOSD, and valuable to monitor disease evolution.

Keywords: Electrophysiology; Hearing disorders; Hearing tests; Multiple sclerosis; Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders.