Saturday, February 03, 2007

Normal appearing white matter (NAWM)& disability

Vrenken H. Altered diffusion tensor in multiple sclerosis normal-appearing brain tissue: cortical diffusion changes seem related to clinical deterioration. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging 2006; 23:628-636.

Prospective controlled study of normal looking white and gray matter. 64 MS patients and 20 healthy controls. The 64 MS patients had 38 RRMS, 14 SPMS, and 12 with PPMS. Whole brain diffusion coefficient (ADC maps) and fractional anisotropy (FA) were obtained. In NAWM, global FA was decreased and global ADC increased in MS patients v. controls. The changes in ADC in NAWM correlated with disability more strongly than T2 lesion load. In gray matter regional analysis, changes in both ADC and FA were significant.
Note the correlation with disability was still "modest at best"

No comments: