Can 7T White Matter Attenuated Turbo Field Echo Replace FLAIR for White Matter Lesion Load Assessment in MS?

Andrew J. Kalnin¹, Katharrine Bluestein¹, David Pitt², Grant K. Yang¹, Michael V. Knopp¹, Petra Schmalbrock¹

In the assessment of Multiple Sclerosis, T2- FLAIR is typically used to assess total lesion load. White Matter Attenuated Turbo Field Echo (WHAT) at 7T has high contrast between lesions and normal appearing white matter, is fast and has low SAR, but the contrast is dependent only on T1, not T2. This study compares MS WM lesion detection with 7T WHAT and 3T T2-FLAIR. WHAT can detect a large fraction of all WM lesions. Lesions are more conspicuous on FLAIR, but WHAT better differentiates abnormal T1 lesions.