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Christopher P. Gilmore, MRCP; Gabriele C. DeLuca, BSc; Lars Bö, MD, PhD; Trudy Owens, PhD; James Lowe, MD, FRCPath; Margaret M. Esiri, DM, FRCPath; Nikos Evangelou, DPhil, MRCP

Arch Neurol. 2005;62:1859-1862.

Objective  To assess the relative contributions of white matter (WM) and gray matter (GM) volume loss to spinal cord atrophy in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Design  Postmortem study of transverse sections obtained from 5 levels of the spinal cord, with measurement of the cross-sectional GM and WM areas.

Setting  Department of Neuropathology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England.

Patients  Fifty-five MS cases and 33 controls.

Main Outcome Measures  Size of the WM and GM areas.

Results  The WM area was significantly reduced in MS cases in the upper but not the lower cord levels. The GM area was not significantly different between MS and control cases.

Conclusion  Spinal cord atrophy in MS is due to WM rather than GM volume loss.

Author Affiliations: Department of Neurology, Queens Medical Centre National Health Service Trust (Drs Gilmore and Evangelou), and Departments of Economics (Dr Owens) and Neuropathology (Dr Lowe), University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England; Department of Clinical Neurology, University of Oxford (Ms DeLuca and Dr Esiri), and Department of Neuropathology, Oxford Radcliffe National Health Service Trust (Dr Esiri), Oxford, England; Department of Neuropathology, VU Medical Centre, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Dr Bö); and National Competence Centre for Multiple Sclerosis, Department of Neurology, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway (Dr Bö).