الفهرس 
OVERVIEW ON MULTIPLE SCLEROSISOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the brain and spinal cord that is a common cause of serious physical disability in young adults. MS patients have various clinical presentations depending on the involved area of the central nervous system (CNS). The definite etiology of MS is still not known but most probably it is multifactorial. There is a debatae whether inflammation initiates neurodegeneration or neurodegeneration occurs independently of inflammation. The pathological findings in MS include inflammation, demyelination (degeneration), remyelination, axonal loss and glial scar formation (failure of repair). The main character of the inflammatory phase is associated with the destruction of the blood-brain barrier and local expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. It is believed that Neutrophil/Lymphocyte ratio (NLR) could be used as a simple, non-invasive, and low-cost marker in demonstrating acute inflammation. During the acute stage of MS, neutrophils are more active in the disease pathogenesis during relapse. This study aims to assess the NLR among a sample of RRMS patients during relapse (active stage) and remission (non-active stage) in order to investigate a potential role of NLR as a cost-effective simple predictor of MS activity in RRMS. Also, to assess the relation between NLR and the clinical features of the relapse. This study included 40 patients diagnosed with RRMS, 31 females and 9 males, age from 18-45 years with no other associated co-morbidities or other immunological disorders. Patients were recruited from neurology department of Nasser Institute Hospital with inclusion and exclusion criteria aiming to eliminate factors other than MS activity, which can alter the average values of NLR. Complete demographic and clinical data were gathered from the patients. NLR was calculated during the time of the relapse and after the remission. By comparison, NLR at the time of the relapse was significantly increased than NLR of remission of same patient (P-value <0.001).