Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a disease that features several distinct patterns of increasing disability over time. One of the four most common disease courses, Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (SPMS), often comes after an MS patient has first been diagnosed with and suffered from a period of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. While relapsing-remitting MS is characterized by a series of unpredictable attacks or flare-ups that subside into a remission state, the increasing disability pattern of secondary progressive MS becomes more steady over time, with flare-ups giving way to a steady increase in disability and loss of quality of life.

It is estimated that about 90% of patients who are initially diagnosed  with relapsing-remitting MS will eventually see the disease develop into secondary progressive MS. Typically, the transition from relapsing-remitting MS to the secondary progressive form begins about  ten years or more from the initial diagnosis, as this is when patients most often report changes in their symptoms and the arc of the severity of the disease.

Though the chart at the left generalizes the progression of several types of MS, because the disease and the manner in which if affects patients is so variable, offering a diagnosis of Secondary Progressive MS can take six months or more, in order for physicians and patients to track the increasing symptoms and disability patterns.

While there is no pattern to predicting attacks in Relapsing-Remitting MS, the overall pattern of the disease type, which features an ongoing series of attacks and remission periods, is enough to differentiate it from other MS diagnoses, such as Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, which features a steady progression of symptoms and disability from the start of the disease. As Relapsing-Remitting MS has a definable pattern feature, patients are able to notice the shift to the  progressive form of the disease as it has become palpable over the course of time, since there is no longer a “recovery” period from symptoms.

Source: BioNews