Repeated attacks can, however, eventually permanently denude the axons and leave the yellow sclerotic plaques that are characteristic of the disease. Recovery occurs when there has been no permanent damage to the myelin sheath during the attack. Brief exacerbations, even with acute and severe symptoms, are thought to be the result of a transient inflammatory depression of neural transmission. The course of the disease is usually prolonged, with remissions and relapses over many years.
More specific signs and symptoms depend on the location of the lesions and the severity and destructiveness of the inflammatory and sclerotic processes.
The symptoms caused by these lesions are typically weakness, incoordination, paresthesias, speech disturbances, and visual disturbances, particularly diplopia. The disease primarily affects the myelin and not the nerve cells themselves any damage to the neurons is secondary to destruction of the myelin covering the axon. Multiple sclerosis (MS) a chronic neurologic disease in which there are patches of demyelination scattered throughout the white matter of the central nervous system, sometimes extending into the gray matter. Findings indicative of the disease are an increased number of plasma cells in the bone marrow (usually over 10 per cent of the total), anemia, hypercalcemia due to release of calcium from deteriorating bone tissue, and elevated blood urea nitrogen, Bence Jones protein in the urine, and osteolytic lesions that give the bone a honeycomb appearance on x-ray and lead to vertebral collapse. Called also plasma cell myeloma.ĭiagnostic procedures to confirm suspected multiple myeloma include blood analyses, quantitative immunologic assays of serum and urine, urinalysis, bone marrow aspiration and biopsy, and skeletal x-rays. It is the most common type of monoclonal gammopathy, characterized by presence of a monoclonal immunoglobulin (immunoglobulin recognized as a single protein), Bence Jones proteins in the urine, anemia, and lowered resistance to infection.
Multiple myeloma a malignant neoplasm of plasma cells in which the plasma cells proliferate and invade the bone marrow, causing destruction of the bone and resulting in pathologic fracture and bone pain.
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