Evoked potential changes in clinically definite multiple sclerosis: a two year follow up study.

Visual, spinal and somatosensory evoked potentials were performed on 56 patients with clinically definite multiple sclerosis at the beginning and end of a 2 1/2 year follow-up period. At the initial examination one or both visual evoked potentials were abnormal in all but nine patients (84%), five of whom had abnormalities of either spinal or somatosensory evoked responses; that is, one or more abnormal results were obtained from 52 of 56 (91%) patients. At the final examination there were abnormalities of one or more evoked potentials in 55 of the 56 (98%) patients. There was an increase in latency of the components of the evoked responses over the period; reduction in latency in individual patients was exceptional. The change in these electrophysiological measurements correlated with the increase in clinical disability of the group of patients over the period of study.