Quantitation and Assessment of the Course of Multiple Sclerosis. Some Remarks

In his excellent book about multiple sclerosis (MS) Dr. Bryan Matthews [9] writes that in trying to evaluate any treatment a number of schemes have been proposed, but “these methods are usually extremely time-consuming...” and he concludes that “there is a serious need for simple and more objective methods of assessment.” Science, even clinical science, is often time-consuming, and as long as we have no specific laboratory method, as we have not, we are forced to use clinical registrations, and only these in our research. MS is a chronic disease, and any therapeutic trial in chronic diseases must be a long-term study, and therefore time-consuming; but it must be as precise as possible.