Figure 1.

Effect of the blood–cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) barrier permeability evaluated through the albumin quotient (QAlb) on disease severity, expressed with the expanded disability status scale (EDSS), and disease duration in months. Only multiple sclerosis (MS) patients were included (cohort 1 and cohort 2 together). Patients were analyzed as a whole and grouped by sex. Mann–Whitney U test was used for all the comparisons. The boundaries of the boxes represent the 25th–75th quartile. The line within the box indicates the median. The vertical lines above and below the box correspond to the highest and lowest values.