This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on ISI (5)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Radiologic Imaging  • Immunologic Disorders  • Cerebrovascular Disease  • Multiple Sclerosis/ Demyelinating Disease  • Neurology, Other  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging  • Alert me on articles by topic

Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast Perfusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging at 3 T

Matilde Inglese, MD, PhD; Sun-Jung Park, MS; Glyn Johnson, PhD; James S. Babb, PhD; Laura Miles, PhD; Hina Jaggi, MS; Joseph Herbert, MD; Robert I. Grossman, MD

Arch Neurol. 2007;64(2):196-202.

Objectives  To assess the presence of perfusion abnormalities in the deep gray matter of patients with relapsing-remitting and primary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) in comparison with healthy controls and to investigate the impact of perfusion impairment on clinical disability and fatigue.

Design  Survey.

Setting  Research-oriented hospital.

Patients  Twenty-two patients with MS and 11 age- and sex-matched healthy volunteers.

Intervention  Absolute cerebral blood flow, cerebral blood volume, and mean transit time were measured in the thalamus, putamen, and caudate nuclei.

Main Outcome Measures  Decrease of cerebral blood flow in the deep gray matter of patients with MS and correlation between perfusion impairment and the severity of fatigue.

Results  The cerebral blood flow value averaged over the thalamus, putamen, and caudate nuclei was significantly lower in patients with primary progressive MS (P<.001) and in patients with relapsing-remitting MS (P = .01) compared with controls, and there was a trend for patients with primary progressive MS to have lower average cerebral blood flow than patients with relapsing-remitting MS (P = .06). With respect to cerebral blood volume, there was a significant difference between patients with primary progressive MS and controls (P<.001) and between the 2 groups of patients (P = .03) but not between patients with relapsing-remitting MS and controls (P>.30). The fatigue score was significantly correlated with cerebral blood flow (r = 0.4; P<.001) and cerebral blood volume (r = 0.5; P = .004).

Conclusion  The decrease of tissue perfusion in the deep gray matter of patients with MS is associated with the severity of fatigue.

Author Affiliations: Departments of Radiology (Drs Inglese, Johnson, Babb, Miles, and Grossman and Mss Park and Jaggi) and Neurology (Dr Herbert), Hospital for Joint Disease, New York University School of Medicine, New York.

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Evidence of thalamic gray matter loss in pediatric multiple sclerosis
Mesaros et al.
Neurology 2008;70:1107-1112.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT