• Matilde Inglese, Sun-Jung Park, Glyn Johnson, James S Babb, Laura Miles, Hina Jaggi, Joseph Herbert, and Robert I Grossman.
• Departments of Radiology and Neurology, Hospital for Joint Disease, New York University School of Medicine, 650 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA. matilde.inglese@med.nyu.edu
• Arch Neurol Chicago. 2007 Feb 1;64(2):196-202.

ObjectivesTo assess the presence of perfusion abnormalities in the deep gray matter of patients with relapsing-remitting and primary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) in comparison with healthy controls and to investigate the impact of perfusion impairment on clinical disability and fatigue.DesignSurvey.SettingResearch-oriented hospital. Patients Twenty-two patients with MS and 11 age- and sex-matched healthy volunteers. Intervention Absolute cerebral blood flow, cerebral blood volume, and mean transit time were measured in the thalamus, putamen, and caudate nuclei.Main Outcome MeasuresDecrease of cerebral blood flow in the deep gray matter of patients with MS and correlation between perfusion impairment and the severity of fatigue.ResultsThe cerebral blood flow value averaged over the thalamus, putamen, and caudate nuclei was significantly lower in patients with primary progressive MS (P<.001) and in patients with relapsing-remitting MS (P = .01) compared with controls, and there was a trend for patients with primary progressive MS to have lower average cerebral blood flow than patients with relapsing-remitting MS (P = .06). With respect to cerebral blood volume, there was a significant difference between patients with primary progressive MS and controls (P<.001) and between the 2 groups of patients (P = .03) but not between patients with relapsing-remitting MS and controls (P>.30). The fatigue score was significantly correlated with cerebral blood flow (r = 0.4; P<.001) and cerebral blood volume (r = 0.5; P = .004).ConclusionThe decrease of tissue perfusion in the deep gray matter of patients with MS is associated with the severity of fatigue.

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