Andrea Kassner1,2, Igor Sitartchouk1,
Rebecca E. Thornhill1,2, Timothy J. Carroll3, Chaitali
Mulay4, Richard Aviv1,4
1Medical Imaging, University of
Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 2Physiology and Experimental
Medicine, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 3Radiology,
Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States; 4Neuroradiology,
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Multiple
sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central
nervous system. While blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption associated with
relapsing-remitting MS is readily identified using gadolinium-enhanced
T1-weighted MRI, these MRI markers lack the sensitivity required for
monitoring secondary progressive MS. Relative recirculation (rR), a parameter
extracted from dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) data, can delineate BBB
disruption in patients with acute ischemic stroke. Relative recirculation was
measured from DSC perfusion data obtained from 19 patients with secondary
progressive MS. The average lesion rR was significantly greater than in
normal appearing white matter and shows potential for monitoring secondary
progressive MS.