Background: Postoperative multiple sclerosis (MS) relapses are a concern among patients and providers.
Objective: To determine whether MS relapse risk is higher postoperatively.
Methods: Data were extracted from medical records of MS patients undergoing surgery at a tertiary center (2000-2016). Conditional logistic regression estimated within-patient unadjusted and age-adjusted odds of postoperative versus preoperative relapse.
Results: Among 281 patients and 609 surgeries, 12 postoperative relapses were identified. The odds of postoperative versus preoperative relapse in unadjusted (odds ratio (OR) = 0.56, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.18-1.79; p = 0.33) or age-adjusted models (OR = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.20-2.16; p = 0.49) were not increased.
Conclusions: Surgery/anesthesia exposure did not increase postoperative relapse risk. These findings require confirmation in larger studies.
Keywords: Anesthesia; logistic models; multiple sclerosis; postoperative period; preoperative period; retrospective studies.