The study covered in this summary was published on medRxiv.org as a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed.
Key Takeaways
Among patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), those who had a better clinical course were found to have microstructural improvement in quantitative MRI (qMRI) parameters, suggesting repair mechanisms.
qMRI may be able to detect modifications in tissue microstructure in normal-appearing brain tissue around lesions several months before they can be detected with conventional MRI.
Why This Matters
Multiple qMRI parameters may be useful for detecting subtle changes within normal-appearing brain tissue and plaque dynamics in patients with MS.
The subtle changes surrounding lesions found on conventional MRI can provide insight into disease repair or progression.
Study Design
The longitudinal study evaluated 17 patients with RRMS from two studies. The patients underwent scanning twice; the interval between scans was at least 1 year.
Age, 25 – 65 years.
Two scanning sessions were separated by a median of 30 months.
Four simultaneously acquired qMRI parameters, saturated magnetization transfer, proton density (PD), R1, and R2, within normal-appearing white matter, normal-appearing cortical gray matter, normal-appearing deep gray matter, and focal white matter lesions were analyzed.
An individual annual rate of change for each parameter was computed for correlation with clinical status.
