Publication: Association between smoking and cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis
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Date
2014-01-01
Authors
Authors
OZCAN, Muhammed Emin
INCE, Bahri
BINGOL, Ayhan
ERTURK, Simge
Altinoz, Meric Adil
KARADELI, Hasan Huseyin
Kocer, Abdulkadir
Asil, TALİP
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Abstract
Purpose: Although smoking is known to cause various symptoms in multiple sclerosis (MS)
patients, there have been no reports regarding the relationship between smoking and cognitive
impairment in MS. Studying the effects of cigarette smoking in MS patients is imperative as
there is a high prevalence of cognitive impairment in MS patients. In this study we examined
the potentially deleterious effects of heavy smoking on mentation of patients with MS.
Patients and methods: MS patients receiving care at the Neurology Clinic at Bezmialem
Vakıf University, between the ages of 18–65 years who have at least graduated elementary school
were included in the study. The Brief Repeatable Battery of Neuropsychological Tests (BRB-N)
is a commonly used method to assess cognitive function in MS patients and was utilized in our
study. Patients that smoked for at least 10 pack-years were considered heavy smokers.
Results: All the patients were stratified into two groups: heavy smokers (n=20) and nonsmokers (n=24). For heavy smokers, their cognitive functioning was more impaired than that of
nonsmokers (P=0.04, χ2
=4.227). For patients with cognitive impairment, 78.9% of the Paced
Auditory Serial Addition Test and 63.2% of the Symbol Digit Modalities Test scores were
found to be lower.
Conclusion: Previous reports have suggested that smoking increases the frequency of relapse
among individuals with relapsing-remitting MS and accelerates disease progression in patients
with progressive MS. According to the results of our study, heavy smokers had increased cognitive impairment when compared to nonsmokers. Extensive studies are necessary to further
elucidate the relationship between smoking and cognitive impairment in MS patients
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Keywords
multiple sclerosis
Citation
OZCAN M. E. , INCE B., BINGOL A., ERTURK S., Altinoz M. A. , KARADELI H. H. , Kocer A., Asil T., -Association between smoking and cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis-, NEUROPSYCHIATRIC DISEASE AND TREATMENT, cilt.10, ss.1715-1719, 2014