Footnotes

• Contributors IG, EFP and SOP performed OCT studies and analysis; MS, SL, NS and AS performed patient evaluation; PV and BSD reviewed data and wrote the manuscript.

• Funding This work was supported by grants to PV from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain (FIS PS09/00259 and RETICS program RD07/0060/01) and by an unrestricted grant from Roche Postdoctoral Fund (RPF-ID046). IG was supported by a fellowship from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain (Rio Ortega program CM11/00240).

• Competing interests Iñigo Gabilondo has received travel and accommodation expenses from Novartis for national and international congresses. Maria Sepulveda has no conflicts of interest to disclose. Santiago Ortiz-Pérez has received consultancy fees from Novartis. Elena Martínez-Lapiscina has received travel and accommodation expenses from Novartis, Biogen, Teva, Sanofi Aventis, Lundbeck and Bayer for national and international congresses. Elena Fraga-Pumar, Sara llufriu and Nuria Sola have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Albert Saiz has received remuneration for consulting services and for giving lectures from Bayer-Schering, Merck-Serono, Biogen-Idec, Sanofi-Aventis, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Novartis. Bernardo Sanchez-Dalmau has received travel and accommodation expenses from Novartis for national and international congresses. PV has received consultancy fees from Roche, Novartis, MedImmune, TFS, Heidelberg Engineering, Digna Biotech and Neurotec Farma and research grants from Novartis and Roche and is founder and hold stocks in Bionure Farma.

• Patient consent Obtained.

• Ethics approval IRB of the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona.

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.