Utility of Tract Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) to Discriminate Subgroups of Multiple Sclerosis Patients

Jochen G. Hirsch^1,2, Yvonne Naegelin¹, Michael Amann², Pascal Kuster², Stefan Traud², Kerstin Bendfeldt², Ernst Wilhelm Radue², Ludwig Kappos¹, Achim Gass¹

Pathological heterogeneity in MS still makes it difficult defining correlates between clinical status on the one hand, and structural tissue changes on the other hand. We investigate the contribution of the recently proposed approach of TBSS to characterize cohorts of MS patients in more detail with respect to structural integrity as assessed by DTI. This study demonstrates that FA values strongly depend on T2w lesionload. Interestingly however, the TBSS analysis showed a difference of FA values in both high-lesion-load groups with different EDSS ranges (0-2 vs. 3-7). The high EDSS group showed lower FA almost exclusively in both pyramidal tracts.