Figure 2.

Disability change. In order to visualize EDSS changes, the total cohort (n = 97) was stratified into four groups: "stable" are patients without EDSS worsening (n = 71), "RAW" were patients with relapse-associated worsening in EDSS (n = 3), "PIRA -SIR" were patients with progression independent of relapses without superimposed relapses (n = 16), "PIRA + SIR" were PIRA patients with superimposed relapses (n = 4). There were no patients with a combination of PIRA and RAW in the cohort (i.e., no superimposed relapses altered the EDSS in any patient). n = 3 patients experienced relapses with complete remission, i.e., without detectable long-term EDSS worsening, and are depicted as blue dots within the stable group. EDSS worsening was defined as an increase of 1.0 EDSS points if the previous EDSS was ≤ 5.5 or 0.5 EDSS points if the previous EDSS was > 5.5 and if the new EDSS was confirmed at least 12 weeks thereafter. Significance was calculated using Kruskal–Wallis test and Dunn's multiple comparison test. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. EDSS expanded disability status scale; RAW relapse-associated worsening; PIRA  progression independent of relapse activity; SIR superimposed relapses.