[Clinical features of relapsing remitting-multiple sclerosis. Prognostic factors]

Multiple sclerosis is the most frequent chronic neurological disease in young adults of the white population in developed countries. The diagnosis has been notably improved by the use of universal diagnostic criteria and by the extraordinary help of the paraclinical methods of laboratory studies, evocated potentials and particularly magnetic resonance imaging. Nowadays there are consensus criteria for the classification of the different clinical subtypes. Relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis is the most frequent subtype and eventually evolves to a secondary progressive form. Ultimately there have been notably advances in the knowledge of the natural history and of the pathogenetic mechanisms of the disease, which has permitted a more precocious therapeutic intervention, that ideally will provide a more benign prognosis for this disease.