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We appreciate the comments of Dalla Costa et al. on our Contemporary Issues article.1 As discussed, this study was not designed to assess the frequency of multiple sclerosis (MS) misdiagnosis or its specific causes.1 We catalogued the diagnoses ultimately assigned to patients mistaken as having MS and reported the evaluation of the MS specialists who determined that a misdiagnosis had occurred according to their analysis of what led to misdiagnosis. Accepting this limitation, application of MS diagnostic criteria to a neurologic syndrome not typical for MS contributed to misdiagnosis in 65% of cases.1 MS diagnostic criteria fail in this situation, but are often applied in clinical practice. In 60% of cases, declaring MRI criteria for dissemination in space satisfied in a patient with nonspecific symptoms contributed to misdiagnosis.1 Ultimately, these 2 errors perpetuate one another. Nonspecific symptoms acquire additional and unwarranted attention when nonspecific MRI lesions are present, and nonspecific MRI lesions are accorded undue attention in the presence of symptoms of common conditions such as migraine. Further studies should establish the frequency of misdiagnosis, but the combination of nonspecific symptoms and nonspecific MRI abnormalities is likely a common contemporary source of MS misdiagnosis.
Footnotes
Author disclosures are available upon request (journal{at}neurology.org).
- © 2017 American Academy of Neurology
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