In 1952, Sydney Carter, MD (1912MD ( -2005; Professor Emeritus, Columbia University), was asked to establish the first independent child neurology program at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Prior to this, children with neurologic disorders were largely cared for by general pediatricians, or on occasion, and often with trepidation, by adult neurologists. Dr. Carter recognized the unique care needs of the pediatric neurology patient. He prioritized the requirement to harmonize neuroscience and neurodevelopment, and advocated the need to identify the hallmarks of neurologic illness in the context of the developing central and peripheral nervous systems, and to foster training programs specifically in Child Neurology.It is my sincere honor to be the 2015 Sydney Carter Award recipient, and to pay service to the many colleagues whose dedication, brilliance, and compassion have contributed immeasurably to the content of this lecture. In my lecture, and herein, I summarize the learning curve and milestones achieved in pediatric multiple sclerosis (MS) care and research to date. I have endeavored to mention the work of international colleagues and to emphasize the Canadian Pediatric Demyelinating Disease program. The Canadian program began with a 3-year survey of over 2,400 pediatric health care providers 1-3 to estimate the annual incidence of acute demyelination in Canadian children. 4 Through the creation of the Canadian Pediatric Demyelinating Disease Network with funding by the Multiple Sclerosis Scientific Research Foundation, a prospective cohort (2004-present), a centralized database, biorepository, and high-quality research MRI dataset have contributed to our understanding of the clinical, genetic, epidemiologic, and imaging characteristics of MS in children.Just as Dr. Carter identified a fundamental need for pediatric neurology, formal programs for pediatriconset MS were also born from recognition of a clinical care need. Before 1980, search of the English literature yielded fewer than 30 publications on the topic of pediatric MS, and many believed that MS was a disease solely of adults (reviewed in Ref. 5). The available MS diagnostic criteria proposed by Poser et al.6 specifically excluded the diagnosis of MS in persons younger than 10 years, and did not formally comment on MS in youth. Further complicating the diagnosis and care of pediatric patients with MS is the fact that approximately 70% of pediatric patients with acute demyelination will have a transient illness without clinical or MRI evidence of new lesions over time. Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) typifies monophasic demyelination, particularly in young children. Distinguishing such patients from the 30% ultimately confirmed to have MS has been the focus of much of the research performed in the last 15 years.
7-9The diagnosis of MS rests on clinical features. There are no diagnostically specific genetic mutations or biomarkers for MS. Given this, an initial priority was to define the clinical features of pediatric-onset MS. Since 1980...