Table 4.

Prognostic features in MS [2, 30, 39, 174–186]

Better prognosis	Poorer prognosis
White	African American or nonwhite
Female	Male
Younger age	Older age
Monofocal onset	Multifocal onset
Minimal cortical pathology	Early cortical involvement
Onset with optic neuritis or isolated sensory symptoms	Onset with motor, cerebellar, or bladder/bowel symptoms
Low relapse rate first 2–5 years	High relapse rate first 2–5 years
High degree of remission after first relapse	Short interattack latency
Long interval to second relapse	Short interval to second relapse
Mild relapse	Severe relapse  ≥1 moderate or severe attack  Steroids/hospitalization required  Severe effect on activities of daily living  >1 functional system affected  Severe motor/cerebellar brainstem involvement
No or low disability at 5 years	Disability at 2 or 5 years
Low lesion load on MRI	Abnormal MRI  ≥2 Gd+/new or newly enlarging T2 hyperintense lesions or ≥ 2 T1 hypointense lesions  ≥2 spinal cord lesions  Baseline brain atrophy
NEDA at 2 years	Disease activity at 2 years
Early treatment	Late treatment
Low (≤386 ng/L) neurofilament light levels	Elevated (>386 ng/L) neurofilament light levels
Absence of oligoclonal IgG bands	Presence of oligoclonal IgG bands and ≥10 brain T2 lesions
Absence of IgM bands	Presence of IgM bands

Gd ⁺ gadolinium-enhancing, Ig immunoglobulin, MRI magnetic resonance imaging, MS multiple sclerosis, NEDA no evidence of disease activity