The current situation of diagnosis and treatment of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder: Experience with 461 cases from a single centre in South China.

Abstract In this study, we included 461 NMOSD patients at our hospital from January 2016 to June 2019 and got some results. Eight (1.9%) originally AQP4-IgG-seronegative patients were retested as seropositive. 221 patients (47.9%) did not receive immunosuppressive treatment within 3 month. The adult/child distribution was significantly different (p = 0.001). Thirty-three patients (7.2%) had relapses after drug withdrawal, and fifteen of them had used drugs ≥3 years. The conclusion is that decision to treat with immunosuppression was made less often in children than in adults. Patients who took medication for a long time still need to be cautious of stopping using immunosuppression.