Multiple sclerosis (MS), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) are chronic, immune-mediated, relapsing-remitting disorders affecting young adults, the pathogenesis of which is still largely unknown. Neurological manifestations and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be indistinguishable and there are no specific diagnostic tools. Treatment and prognosis are quite different. ...

In addition to providing information on tissue structure, magnetic resonance (MR) technology offers the potential to investigate tissue metabolism and function. MR spectroscopy (MRS) offers a wealth of data on the biochemistry of a selected brain tissue volume, which represent potential surrogate markers for the pathology underlying multiple sclerosis (MS). ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In the early stage of Multiple Sclerosis (MS), conventional MR imaging parameters such as T2 lesion load fail to explain the clinical status of patients. In the present work, we aimed to determine the ability of magnification transfer imaging to better reflect the relationship between local tissue ...

Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) has the ability to provide non-invasive information on tissue microstructure not available in routine clinical MRI images. This includes information regarding the degree of anisotropy as well as the direction of the diffusion of water molecules within the tissues. Since white matter areas of ...

The characteristic feature of multiple sclerosis (MS) pathology is the demyelinated plaque distributed throughout the central nervous system. Although MS is a primary demyelinating disease, acute axonal injury is common in actively demyelinating MS lesions and it is considered one of the major determinants of neurological deficit. Magnetic resonance imaging ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has played a central role in the clinical management and scientific investigation of multiple sclerosis (MS) and has become the most important ancillary tool for diagnosing and monitoring the disease. Conventional MRI techniques are used to assess overt lesions and atrophy in the central nervous system ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become a core component of clinical management and scientific research in multiple sclerosis (MS), providing essential information about tissue structure and function. MRI is now the most important laboratory diagnostic and longitudinal monitoring technology. A number of conventional MRI techniques, which include T2-weighted, T1-weighted, and ...

Significant advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology and treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) have been made during the past decade. These advances have revealed evidence of profound heterogeneity in MS. There is a clear need to revisit the key issues in MS pathogenesis and treatment strategies, taking new data ...

Neuroprotection in MS needs to be considered in the context of several pathological processes: limitation of acute inflammatory injury to myelin and axons, remyelination, survival of demyelinated axons, and limitation of more diffuse, nonlesional pathology that affects myelin and axons. Advanced MRI techniques are capable of reporting on all of ...

Subcutaneous recombinant interferon-beta-1a (Rebif) 22 or 44 microg three times weekly is a valuable option in the first-line treatment in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. It has shown benefits on outcome measures related to relapses, progression of disability, and magnetic resonance imaging in clinical trials. A significant efficacy advantage for ...

We propose to segment Multiple Sclerosis (MS) lesions overtime in multidimensional Magnetic Resonance (MR) sequences. We use a robust algorithm that allows the segmentation of the abnormalities using the whole time series simultaneously and we propose an original rejection scheme for outliers. We validate our method using the BrainWeb simulator. ...

Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has routinely been used to improve the accuracy of multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis and monitoring, detect the effects of disease-modifying therapy, and refine the utility of clinical assessments. However, conventional MRI measures, such as the use of lesion volume and count of gadolinium-enhancing and T2 ...

Multiple sclerosis (MS), a demyelinating disease, occurs principally in the white matter (WM) of the central nervous system. Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is sensitive to some, but not all, brain changes associated with MS. Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) provides information about water diffusion in tissue and diffusion tensor MRI (DT-MRI) ...

Reduced microvascular perfusion has been implicated in organ dysfunction and multiple organ failure associated with severe sepsis. The precise mechanisms underlying microvascular dysfunction remain unclear, but there are considerable experimental data showing reduced microcirculatory flow, particularly of small vessels, and increased heterogeneity. With the development of newer imaging techniques, human ...

Tuberous sclerosis complex is a neurocutaneous and autosomal dominant disease characterized by multiple hamartomas in multiple viscera. It results from spontaneous mutation. The genetic anomaly is usually linked to the 9th chromosome. It may be accompanied by early childhood seizures, multiple brain tumors, skin lesions, angiomyolipomas in the kidneys and ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) continues to evolve, providing almost boundless information about tissue structure and function that can be obtained noninvasively in vivo. MRI is a key tool in the diagnosis and longitudinal monitoring of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The technique is highly sensitive for the definition of brain ...

The syndrome of alexia without agraphia occurs rarely in multiple sclerosis (MS). We report a patient with right homonymous hemianopsia and alexia without agraphia as his initial manifestations of relapsing-remitting MS. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) demonstrated a hyperintense lesion in the left occipital subcortical white matter (WM) and an enhancing ...

OBJECTIVES: To examine the frequency of central nervous system (CNS) disease in primary Sjogrens syndrome (pSS) and indicate ways in which cerebral magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may help determine the significance of CNS involvement. METHODS: The current review was based on a Medline (Pubmed) literature search through May 2003, focused ...

Recent advances in the development of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) bring hope for a treatment that will provide inhibition of the structural damage associated with the disease. DMARD development presents great challenges for the validation of structural surrogate markers to evaluate the performance of these new therapies in clinical trials, ...

A 41-year-old man presented with vertigo and gait disturbance. He gave a 10-year history of definite ankylosing spondylitis with low back pain, limitation of spinal mobility, decreased chest expansion and radiological evidence of bilateral sacroiliitis. The vertigo attacks started 3 years before and he had insidious evolution of bilateral leg ...

This study used a model for magnetization transfer (MT) to estimate two underlying parameters: the macromolecular proton fraction (f) and the bound pool T2 (T2b) in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Sixty patients with clinically definite MS and 27 healthy controls were imaged using: (1) a dual echo fast spin ...

The mechanisms underlying the progressive course of multiple sclerosis (MS) are not fully understood yet. Since diffusion tensor (DT) MRI can provide quantitative estimates of both MRI-visible and MRI-occult brain damage related to MS, the present study investigated the value of DT MRI-derived measures for the assessment of the short-term ...

In the past few years, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become increasingly relevant in the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS). Yet, the specificity of MR is limited. Atypical forms of MS and other diseases of the central nervous system may show similar patterns in MR. We briefly discuss the MR ...

Pain and swelling of the medial end of the clavicle may be associated with radiographic sclerosis. The commonest causes are osteoarthritis, infection and condensing osteitis of the clavicle. Distinguishing between these clinically and radiologically can be difficult but computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are often useful for ...

IFN-beta is effective in reducing relapses and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) lesions in multiple sclerosis (MS). It is assumed that individual therapeutic responses vary, but methods to identify IFN-beta responsiveness have not been validated. Our objective was to evaluate methods to classify IFN-beta responder status using relapses and MRI lesions. ...

BACKGROUND: Long-term follow-up of the Optic Neuritis Treatment Trial (ONTT) cohort to evaluate brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients who have not developed clinically definite multiple sclerosis. OBJECTIVE: To determine the proportion of patients with monosymptomatic optic neuritis who manifest new brain MRI lesions without having developed clinically definite ...

PURPOSE: To correlate quantitative magnetic resonance (MR) imaging data (ie, relaxation times and magnetization transfer ratios [MTRs]) with histopathologic findings of demyelination and axonal disease in cervical spinal cord specimens from patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and control subjects. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Formaldehyde-fixed cervical spinal cord specimens from 11 patients ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a collection of very sensitive and versatile techniques for detecting multiple sclerosis (MS) related damage in the central nervous system. Each technique is characterised by a particular combination of sensitivity, tissue and pathological specificity, and technical requirements that enable diverse aspects of MS to be ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an extremely sensitive diagnostic tool that provides us with highly detailed images of the living human brain. Since it was first applied to multiple sclerosis (MS) in clinical trials in the 1980s, MRI has become established as a reliable, sensitive and reproducible technique for studying ...

Measuring perfusion provides a potential indication of metabolic activity in brain tissue. Studies in multiple sclerosis (MS) have identified areas of decreased perfusion in grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM), but the pattern in clinical subgroups is unclear. This study investigated perfusion changes in differing MS clinical subgroups on ...

Several quantitative magnetic resonance (MR) measures are used to investigate multiple sclerosis (MS) in vivo. Precise quantitative investigation of the histopathological correlates of such measures has, to date, been limited. This study investigates the relationship of quantitative measures of myelin content, axonal density, and gliosis with quantitative MR measures in ...

Short echo time single voxel methods were used in previous MR spectroscopy studies of phenylalanine (Phe) levels in phenylketonuria (PKU) patients. In this study, apparent T2 relaxation time of the 7.3-ppm Phe multiplet signal in the brain of PKU patients was assessed in order to establish which echo time would ...

INTRODUCTION: Focal atrial fibrillation (AF) may initiate with an irregular rapid burst of atrial ectopic (AE) activity from a pulmonary vein (PV) focus, but how AF is maintained it is not known. The crista terminalis (CT) is an important line of block in atrial flutter (AFL), but its role in ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Previously reported quantitative parameters for the magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) do not give identical results, which can limit their ability to differentiate normal from diseased tissue and render them vulnerable to variations among MR systems. Our purpose was to systematically study different MTR metrics; propose a new ...

The diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) has been improved in recent decades with the incorporation of paraclinical investigations in diagnostic workup. In the last 15 years, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become an especially valuable tool for supporting MS diagnosis, and specific imaging criteria became fundamental to the guidelines for ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become an accepted tool for monitoring therapeutic trials in relapsing-remitting and secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS); it is however unclear whether such MRI markers are equally applicable to primary progressive MS (PPMS). Forty-two patients with PPMS were reviewed five years after commencing a two-year MRI ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an important paraclinical tool for the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) and for monitoring its disease course. The efficacy of most of the available MS disease-modifying treatments has been tested in clinical trials where MRI-derived quantities served as primary or secondary outcome measures. However, conventional ...

BACKGROUND: Axonal damage has been observed in normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). OBJECTIVES: To investigate changes in brain metabolite ratios in a region of normal-appearing corpus callosum (CC) for patients with MS and to test its relationship to changes in other regions of NAWM. DESIGN ...

This article focuses on the various magnetic resonance imaging metrics currently used in multiple sclerosis and discusses how they relate to central nervous system atrophy. The authors discuss the significance of T2 lesion burden, gray matter damage, T1 hypointense lesions (black holes), contrast-enhanced lesions, magnetization transfer imaging, diffusion imaging, and ...

In the longitudinal study of multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions, varying position of the patient inside the MRI scanner is one of the major sources of assessment errors. We propose to use analytical indices that are invariant to spatial orientation to describe the lesions, rather than focus on patient repositioning or ...

We present a method to detect intensity changes in longitudinal volumetric MRI data from patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).

OBJECTIVE: To describe the current understanding of the diagnosis and treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) and to explore the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) assessment as a prognostic tool and an indicator in the diagnosis of MS. SUMMARY: MS is a chronic, progressive, demyelinating disease of the central nervous ...

The introduction of MRI has shown that the acute, recurrent (R), and multiphasic (M) forms of disseminated encephalomyelitis (DEM) are more common than suspected in adults, and that their MR images are sufficiently characteristic in most instances to make differentiation from multiple sclerosis (MS) possible. In addition, a number of ...

Starting with Charcot, diagnostic criteria for multiple sclerosis (MS) have evolved to reflect advances in our understanding of the disease and the development of new diagnostic techniques, and from purely clinical considerations to increasing dependency upon imaging of the central nervous system. The MS diagnostic process was revolutionized by the ...

Close blood relatives of MS patients have MRI changes suggestive of MS despite the absence of any symptoms. They have also been seen when an MRI is obtained for various reasons in unrelated persons. This raises questions regarding their clinical significance, if any, since typical MS plaques have been found ...

Patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) typically experience a progressive disease course from onset, leading to the accumulation of severe neurological disability. This is in contrast with the observation that the burden and activity of lesions on conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the brain are much lower ...

BACKGROUND: The aetiology of the learning difficulty in tuberous sclerosis is debated. It may be related to the amount of tubers in the brain or caused by the infantile spasms that occur in early life. AIMS: To examine the relative contributions to final intelligence (IQ) made by both cerebral tubers ...

This study evaluates levels of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) brain-specific proteins (BSP) in subjects with optic neuritis (ON) who are at high risk of progression to multiple sclerosis (MS). Forty-one subjects had acute ON and 17 subjects with other neurological diseases (OND) served as controls. Twenty-one subjects with ON had white ...

Normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) in established multiple sclerosis has been shown to be abnormal using a variety of magnetic resonance (MR) techniques, including proton MR spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS), although the stage at which these changes first appear is less clear. Using a 1.5 T scanner and single-voxel (1)H-MRS [TR 3000 ms, ...

BACKGROUND: The pathophysiological basis for differences in disability in patients with multiple sclerosis is unclear. METHODS: We used magnetic resonance imaging to examine whether differences in disability in cohorts of multiple sclerosis patients with similar T2-weighted lesion volume and disease duration were associated with a more destructive disease process in ...