J Comput Assist Tomogr 2002 Jan-Feb;26(1):62-68
Ge Y, Grossman RI, Udupa JK, Babb
JS, Mannon LJ, McGowan JC.
Departments of Radiology, New York
University School of Medicine (Y. Ge, R. I. Grossman, L. J. Mannon), University
of Pennsylvania Medical Center (J. K. Udupa), Department of Biostatistics,
Fox Chase Cancer Center (J. S. Babb), Philadelphia, PA, and Department
of Electrical Engineering (J. C. McGowan), U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis,
MD, U.S.A.
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this work was to determine
the extent of disease and disease severity in the conventional MR normal-appearing
gray matter (NAGM) and white matter (NAWM) in patients with relapsing-remitting
(RR) and secondary progressive (SP) multiple sclerosis (MS) utilizing quantitative
magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) histogram analysis.
METHOD:
Twenty-seven patients with MS (16
RR, 11 SP) and 16 healthy control subjects were studied. MTR was calculated
in the totally segmented GM and WM without T2 lesions in each group.
RESULTS:
Each of the RR and SP MS patient
groups had significantly smaller MTR histogram mean values in NAGM and
NAWM than the healthy subjects (p </= 0.0015). SP MS patients had a
significantly lower first quartile and MTR histogram peak height for NAGM
only (p </= 0.004) when compared with both RR MS patients and healthy
subjects. The T2 lesion load had a modest negative correlation with MTR
values in both RR and SP MS, but only in NAGM.
CONCLUSION:
Separate analysis of GM and WM MTR
histograms may allow better detection of subtle damage and better understanding
of the natural history of MS disease and ultimately the response to therapeutics.