[Evoked potentials in multiple sclerosis: recent experience at the Locomotor System Diseases Hospital]

Description of main abnormal findings in eight patients with a suspected diagnosis of multiple sclerosis who underwent multimodality evoked potentials studies at HDAL-SARAH--Hospital for Diseases of the Locomotor System, in Brasilia--, during three years (1987-1989). Four of those patients have also been studied with magnetic resonance imaging techniques, and in all of them the results were also typical of demyelinating disease of the central nervous system. The most useful evoked potentials were pattern-shift visual (VEP) and somatosensory (SSEP), which yielded much more information than did brainstem auditory (BAEP) components. This is in agreement with results previously described in the literature. It is concluded that multimodality evoked potentials studies are an easily obtainable and valuable diagnostic tool in multiple sclerosis.