Aleksandra Podlecka-Piętowska

Medical University of Warsaw · Department of Neurology

Multiple sclerosis and aquaporin-4 antibody neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders are distinct autoimmune CNS disorders with overlapping clinical features but differing pathology. Multiple sclerosis is primarily a demyelinating disease with the presence of widespread axonal damage, while neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders is characterized by...

Multiple sclerosis and aquaporin-4 antibody neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders are distinct autoimmune CNS disorders with overlapping clinical features but differing pathology. Multiple sclerosis is primarily a demyelinating disease with the presence of widespread axonal damage, while neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders is characterized by...

Clinical rationale for the study: The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 throughout the world has highlighted the importance of vaccinations to control the pandemic and to protect people at risk for severe disease courses. Disease-modifying therapies (DMT) in multiple sclerosis (MS), whether immunomodulatory or immunosuppressive, may affect the immune res...

Aim of the study: To assess the prevalence and characteristics of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use among multiple sclerosis (MS) patients in Poland. Clinical rationale for the study: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, progressive and disabling neurological disease with significant impact on quality of life. Although the effica...

(1) Background: The present study aims to report the side effects of vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) who were being treated with disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) in Poland. (2) Methods: The study included 2261 patients with MS who were being treated with DMTs, and who were vaccin...

Background and objectives : Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) is a disease misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). We hypothesized that the serum metabolic profile could be helpful in the differentiation of both diseases in an early stage. Methods : We included controls, patients with MS diagnosed according to the McDonald criteria...

We report on a 36-year-old man with cerebellar-extrapyramidal syndrome and severe heart failure because of dilated cardiomyopathy of unknown origin. Dysarthria and cardiac arrhythmia began at early childhood (4 years of age). Brain MRI (28 years of age) demonstrated severe cerebellar atrophy. At the age 32, he presented with dysarthria, ataxia, dys...

Objectives To provide real-world data on the impact of autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT) on treatment costs of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) in Poland. Methods Medical data of 105 patients who underwent AHSCT in the years 2011 to 2016 were obtained from the National Health Fund (NHF) database. Treatment costs were...

Introduction: The aim of this study was to report the course and outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients treated with disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) in Poland. A major concern for neurologists worldwide is the course and outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with MS treated with different DMTs. Although initia...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, immune-mediated demyelinating disease of the central nervous system of unclear etiology, but there is some evidence that viral infections could be responsible for triggering autoimmune mechanisms against myelin. We searched for viral RNA and DNA in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 34 MS patients and 13 controls usi...

Pathology of the spinal venous system, unlike that of the spinal arterial system, is rarely considered as a possible cause of clinical symptoms. As the imaging features of the spinal venous anatomy and its diseases are not well-known, related pathologies may be overlooked or misdiagnosed. The major noninvasive technique enabling optimal visualizati...

Background Optic neuritis (ON) is one of the hallmark symptomatic features of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD). The majority of patients with NMOSD present highly specific autoantibodies against aquaporin-4 (AQP4). A number of studies have reported poor visual acuity outcomes in individuals with AQP4 seropositive NMOSD, but no such r...

The lack of a single predictive or diagnostic test in multiple sclerosis (MS) remains a major obstacle in the patient’s care. The aim of this study was to investigate metabolic profiles, especially lipids in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) using ¹H-NMR spectroscopy and metabolomics analysis to discriminate MS patient group from the control ones. In this...

Objectives: Fingolimod is indicated for the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) patients with highly aggressive disease characterized by frequent relapses and active magnetic resonance imaging. Its efficacy has been demonstrated in three large phase III trials, used in the regulatory submissions throughout the world. Fingoli...

The development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has led to an increasingly frequent detection of changes in the spinal cord. The most common intramedullary lesions are: demyelinating; vascular; inflammatory; infectious; and congenital, largely called tumor-like lesions. Spinal cord tumors are relatively rare, as compared with brain tumors. The...

BACKGROUND The Internet is a source of knowledge and a medium that can be widely used in services that facilitate access to information and networking. Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) find the possibility to acquire information relating to their condition particularly rewarding. OBJECTIVE The study aimed to identify the preferences of Polish...

Background: The internet is a source of knowledge and medium widely used in services that facilitate access to information and networking. Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients find the possibility of acquiring information relating to their condition particularly rewarding. Objective: We aimed to identify Polish MS patients' preferences by analyzing...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease, which affects mostly women and has an early onset. Due to progress in treatment patients maintain a high quality of life for a long period and participate in all of its fields. One of them is reproductive health with all of its aspects. The aim of the study was to evaluate the reproductive health of fem...

Objective: Uric acid is a potent endogenous antioxidant and scavenger of peroxynitrite (PN), which hypothesized to be involved in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS). Some studies reported lower levels of UA in MS patients compared with controls, whereas other studies found no difference. The main purpose of this analysis was to verify the...

Introduction New aggressive treatments promise improvement of results in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS), however, with high risk of serious complications. In this study, we analyzed patients’ acceptance for risks connected with the MS treatment. Methods The study was designed as a prospective nonanonymous online questionnaire. Responders...

Introduction Sexual dysfunction (SD) is one of the common symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) and is often underdiagnosed, especially in women. Relapsing‐remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) is the most widespread form of the disease, but the data on SD occurrence in this particular group of patients is limited. The aim of the study was to analyze t...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of central nervous system of unknown etiology. However, some infectious agents have been suggested to play a significant role in its pathogenesis. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) and metagenomics can be employed to characterize microbiome of MS patients and to identify potenti...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system, in which movement disorders (MD) have been reported very rarely. Anatomopathological studies of MS indicate two main processes: inflammation and neurodegeneration. The occurrence of the movement disorders symptoms in MS revises the question of aet...

Mitoxantrone (MTX) has been shown to reduce progression of disability and number of clinical exacerbations in patients with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS). Prolonged administration of MTX, however, is limited by the risk of cardiotoxicity. Cardiac monitoring in MTX-treated patients includes usually measurement of left ventricular ejection frac...

The influence of sex hormones on immune system activity in multiple sclerosis (MS) has been suggested by clinical evidence. The aim of the study was to ana-lyse the pattern of sex hormones in MS women and to correlate the hormone pattern abnormalities to the disease course as well as to the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) results. We studied the s...

Intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) is one of the most devastatingforms of stroke. It is characterized by a severe clinical course and high mortality (60%). The most common etiological risk factors are: hypertension and vascular malformation. Amphetamine-like stimulants abuse can be also considered as a cause of intracranial haemorrhage. Young people s...

Vascular malformations usually develop as a result of influence of teratogenic factor(s) acting in the defined embryonic/fetal period. However, in the case examined by us, various types of vascular malformations formed in different periods of the ontogenic development were found. They were seen in all parts of the central nervous system and clinica...

The importance of apolipoprotein E (ApoE) and myeloperoxidase (MPO) genotypes in the clinical characteristics of multiple sclerosis (MS) has been recently emphasized. In a large group of Polish patients we have tested the hypothesis that polymorphism in ApoE and MPO genes may influence the course of the disease. Genotypes were determined in 117 MS...

In the present study, morphological examination of patients from two unrelated Polish families with CADASIL was performed. Using light microscopy, there were evident changes characteristic to the disease. On electron microscopy, deposits of granular osmiophillic material (GOM) were found not only in cerebral arteries and veins but also in cerebral...

Acute phase of stroke is the focus of most experimental and clinical studies on cerebral ischaemia. The scarcity of data on remote changes led us to examine the morphological pictures of brains after ischaemic insults. We paid special attention to the white matter capillaries. We microscopically evaluated 10 brains of patients who died after one mo...

We described the first two unrelated Polish families with cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL). In the morphological examination with light microscopy, two kinds of changes were observed: (1). panarteritis nodosa-like changes with eosinophilic fibrinoid necrosis of the vessel wall and...

Hyponatremia is a common electrolyte disturbance occurring in a broad spectrum of patients, from asymptomatic to critically ill. The disease is defined as a decrease in serum sodium concentration to a level below 136 mmol per liter. The brain damage from hyponatremia can be associated with either hyponatremic encephalopathy or improper therapy of s...

Disturbances in cell migration are heterogenic disorders of brain development commonly associated with epilepsy and mental retardation. We report a 45-year-old oligophrenic man with defect of lower limbs and family history of mental retardation who died because of brainstem hemorrhage. At post-mortem and histopathological examination, complex brain...

We investigated the development of vascular basement membrane in immature spinal cord vessels during rat spinal cord myelination. Correlative ultrastructural and immunohistochemical study indicated that fibronectin was the first component of extracellular matrix. Then, on the 9th postnatal day, laminin appeared. At that time, lamina lucida of vascu...

Astrocytes play an important role in CNS development phenomena, such as neuron migration and blood-brain barrier formation, but only a little is known of their role in the process of myelination. The aim of our investigation was to examine the relationship between astrocytes and myelin formation. We evaluated rat spinal cords using hematoxylin-eosi...

Our report refers two cases of tuberculous encephalomeningitis which differ in the course and pathological changes. In case 1 blood vessels showed features of peri, endo-, or panvasculites. In some vessels endothelium proliferation leading to the stenosis or obliteration of the vascular lumen was observed. Necrosis was an effect of vessels occlusio...

Introduction of immunocytochemical reaction to glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) made possible more accurate estimation of astrocytes reactivity in various diseases of CNS, among others, in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Lack of present studies concerning reactive astroglia in spinal cord, inclined us to examine the reaction of astrocyte...