The utility of OCT for distinguishing NMO from MS and other inflammatory conditions with ocular involvement is currently being investigated. Visual evoked potentials show either reduced amplitudes or prolonged latencies, or both; in more severe cases there may be no response at all [262]. Delayed P100 latencies may indicate that the optic nerve is subclinically affected in

patients presenting with LETM, but with no history buy KU-57788 of clinically apparent ON. NMO is still an incurable disease. The goal of treating acute NMO events is to improve relapse symptoms and restore neurological functions; long-term immunosuppression aims to prevent further attacks [4, 263, 264]. Any treatment recommendations are limited by the small size of most studies, which were mostly retrospective case-series. No prospective controlled trials in NMO have been conducted, and most study designs with long placebo treatment would probably be considered unethical. Relapses are treated with high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone; if response is insufficient, patients may benefit from PE [265]. If a patient has previously responded well to PE, PE may be considered as initial treatment

in case of another relapse. In patients in whom both steroids and PE do not improve symptoms, treatment with intravenous immunoglobulins [266] or an escalation to cytoablative Cediranib (AZD2171) therapy such as cyclophosphamide may be considered [264]. For

long-term immunosuppression, click here patients usually receive either B cell-targeted therapies such as intravenous rituximab or oral azathioprine and/or prednisone [87, 110, 113, 267-272]. Other possible options include mycophenolate mofetil [273], methotrexate [274] or mitoxantrone which, however, is limited by major side effects such as cardiotoxicity or leukaemia and thus generally not considered as initial treatment [264, 275-280]. It is beyond the scope of this paper to provide details on dosing schemes and monitoring of the various NMO drugs, and therefore we refer the reader to two recent, excellent overviews on treatment recommendations [264, 281]. However, one aspect deserves mention: less severe lesions have been found in type I interferon (IFN) receptor-deficient mice, suggesting that type I IFNs might be involved in the pathogenesis of NMO. Accordingly, IFN-β, a therapeutic mainstay in MS, has been repeatedly reported to exacerbate disease or to be ineffective in patients with NMO. The use of IFN-β in the treatment of NMO is therefore strongly discouraged. Similarly, lack of efficacy or disease exacerbation has also been reported following treatment with other typical MS drugs such as natalizumab and, in single cases, also fingolimod and alemtuzumab [169-171, 282-290].