5. Conclusion
Our data showed no significant differences in diameters and
cross-sectional areas of the VIIth and
VIIIth cranial nerves between the affected and the
clinically non-affected side of unilaterally affected patients with MD
after Bonferroni correction for multiple testing. There was also no
correlation to duration of clinical symptoms. This may potentially point
toward a systemic process starting long before the onset of first
clinical symptoms. On the other hand, it could also indicate that there
is no change in the 7th and 8th cranial nerves in MD. However, this
contradicts our previous study, which showed thicker nerves in patients
with MD compared to a healthy control group
(8).
Normative nerve diameters should only be used if comparable MRI sequence
parameters are used as our data showed different means for the same
patients at the same measuring points depending on the MRI sequences
used.