Contributions
Abstract: 100
Type: Oral
In the past several decades, imaging has become an indispensible tool in the field of MS, in both clinical practice and clinical research. Much progress has been made using imaging to measure and understand various aspects of MS pathobiology, with the ultimate goal of developing tools that can predict irreversible loss of CNS tissue and clinical disability in patients. In the current state of the field, some prognostic information can be gathered from MRIs that are obtained in routine clinical practice, while other potentially useful non-conventional techniques are mainly used in clinical research and have not yet been incorporated into clinical care.
New T2-visible white matter lesions, a metric currently measurable in the clinic, have been shown in several landmark papers to be a surrogate of clinical relapses and to predict the accumulation of clinical disability measured by EDSS. Whole brain atrophy measurements may provide additive value when combined with white matter lesions to predict EDSS, and regional grey matter and spinal cord atrophy may also have prognostic utility; however, volumetrics remain a clinical research tool at present. Finally, more advanced quantitative metrics can be used to predict future CNS tissue loss and clinical disability; these include magnetization transfer ratio, as well as markers that can be derived from MR spectroscopy. This field faces several challenges to incorporate these tools into routine clinical practice, including standardized post-processing, acquisition, and developing statistical methods to translate these metrics into clinically relevant information at the individual level.
Disclosure: Dr. Azevedo has served on advisory boards for Genentech, Biogen, and Genzyme.
Abstract: 100
Type: Oral
In the past several decades, imaging has become an indispensible tool in the field of MS, in both clinical practice and clinical research. Much progress has been made using imaging to measure and understand various aspects of MS pathobiology, with the ultimate goal of developing tools that can predict irreversible loss of CNS tissue and clinical disability in patients. In the current state of the field, some prognostic information can be gathered from MRIs that are obtained in routine clinical practice, while other potentially useful non-conventional techniques are mainly used in clinical research and have not yet been incorporated into clinical care.
New T2-visible white matter lesions, a metric currently measurable in the clinic, have been shown in several landmark papers to be a surrogate of clinical relapses and to predict the accumulation of clinical disability measured by EDSS. Whole brain atrophy measurements may provide additive value when combined with white matter lesions to predict EDSS, and regional grey matter and spinal cord atrophy may also have prognostic utility; however, volumetrics remain a clinical research tool at present. Finally, more advanced quantitative metrics can be used to predict future CNS tissue loss and clinical disability; these include magnetization transfer ratio, as well as markers that can be derived from MR spectroscopy. This field faces several challenges to incorporate these tools into routine clinical practice, including standardized post-processing, acquisition, and developing statistical methods to translate these metrics into clinically relevant information at the individual level.
Disclosure: Dr. Azevedo has served on advisory boards for Genentech, Biogen, and Genzyme.