[Multiple sclerosis in children and adolescents: history and current experience of immunomodulating treatment]

An agreement accepted worldwide for treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) in adult patients has not been achieved so far for children and adolescents, mostly due to the insufficient information on the features of MS with early age-at-onset. New methods of immunomodifying treatment and the conception of early MS treatment have changed the attitude to prognosis of MS with early onset. In such cases, a course of the disease is less aggressive and characterized by more intensive remyelination as well as brain plasticity and less neurological deficit that may predict highest efficacy of the disease modifying treatment timely started in these patients. Such drugs, as beta-interferons, glatiramer acetate and high-dosage intravenous immunoglobulines G, which are able to decrease MS relapse frequency and disability progression in adult patients, are poorly studied in children and adolescents. Preliminary positive results of international and Russian investigations on the efficacy and tolerability of immunomodulating therapy of MS with early age-at-onset require further investigations in this field.