Comparison of MS Lesions Seen with 7T Iron Sensitive Phase and 3T Post Gadolinium T1 Imaging

Petra Schmalbrock¹, David Pitt², Katharine Teal Bluestein¹, Eashwar Swamy², Grant Yang¹, Michael Knopp¹

Currently, gadolinium (Gd) enhanced T1-weighted imaging is used to asses inflammation and lesion activity. Gd-enhanced imaging is, however, dependent on the integrity of the local blood-brain barrier and could potentially miss some inflammatory activity in Multiple Sclerosis patients. In this study, 7T phase images are calculated from iron-sensitive susceptibility weighted images and compared to standard clinical 3T FLAIR and Gd-enhanced T1w-SE. Gd-enhancing lesions were only seen in relapsing-remitting patients and none of them were visible on the phase images. Iron-sensitive imaging provides complimentary information to Gd-enhancement and suggests different mechanisms of lesion formation.