TY - JOUR T1 - The borderland of neuromyelitis optica JF - Practical Neurology JO - Pract Neurol SP - 335 LP - 340 DO - 10.1136/jnnp.2009.193888 VL - 9 IS - 6 AU - Lucy A E Matthews AU - Fahd Baig AU - Jacqueline Palace AU - Martin R Turner Y1 - 2009/12/01 UR - http://pn.bmj.com/content/9/6/335.abstract N2 - Neuromyelitis optica (NMO), also known as Devic’s disease, is an emerging clinical and pathological entity originally thought to be a variant of multiple sclerosis. Characterised by episodes of demyelination confined to the optic nerve and spinal cord, the discovery in such patients of antibodies to the aquaporin-4 channel has been largely responsible for defining the phenotype to date. Recently it has become clear that there is a borderland where there are patients with optic neuritis-only and myelitis-only forms of the disease, and these may be seronegative in the early phase. We describe two cases of optic neuritis-only NMO, and explore the current understanding of the diagnosis and spectrum of NMO disorders. ER -