Multiple sclerosis and related disorders
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Mult Scler Relat Disord · Jan 2015
Spinal cord atrophy in multiple sclerosis and relationship with disability across clinical phenotypes.
Several studies have shown a relationship between spinal cord atrophy and clinical disability in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). ⋯ Our study demonstrates that CSA-C2 has a strong correlation with clinical disability in both RRMS and progressive MS. Greater spinal cord atrophy was seen in patients with progressive than relapsing-remitting MS. CSA-C2, disease duration, and phenotype are independent predictors of disability.
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Mult Scler Relat Disord · Jul 2014
Web search behavior for multiple sclerosis: An infodemiological study.
Millions of people worldwide use the Internet daily as a source of health information. Google is the most popular search engine and is used by patients and physicians to search for online health-related information. This study aimed to evaluate changes in Web search behavior occurring in English-speaking countries over time for the term "multiple sclerosis" (MS). ⋯ Most people appear to use search engines to look for MS to obtain information on symptoms, possibly to aid initial self-diagnosis. News on celebrities with MS seem to be a major factor that influences online search behavior.
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Mult Scler Relat Disord · Mar 2014
Improved detection of focal cortical lesions using 7T magnetisation transfer imaging in patients with multiple sclerosis.
Cortical lesions account for a larger proportion of brain demyelination than white matter (WM) lesions. They are often missed on conventional MRI. Recently studies improved the detection of cortical lesions using 7T T2(⁎), 7T MPRAGE and 3T DIR but it seems that we are still able to detect only "the tip of the iceberg". In this study we report for the first time the systematic use of high resolution MTR in MS and compare MTR lesion detection with 7T MPRAGE, 7T T2(⁎) and 3T 3D DIR. ⋯ We found that 7T MTR, in less than 10min scanning time, was able to detect cortical lesions. In this study we found that 7T MTR was better in detecting intracortical lesions in comparison with 7T T2(⁎), 7T MPRAGE, and 3T 3D DIR. since only a very few intracortical lesions were detected in healthy controls in our blind assessment, it is likely that the lesions detected represent focal grey matter demyelination. High resolution MT imaging has especially revealed cortical changes that have not been recognised by other MR sequences. MTR maps were noisier than MPRAGE, T2(⁎) and DIR, but also better in localising cortical lesions. As MTR is more pathologically specific than other sequences in detecting tissue myelination, it raises the possibility that high resolution MTR will be able to demonstrate cortical remyelination in vivo.
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Mult Scler Relat Disord · Mar 2014
Is 3D MPRAGE better than the combination DIR/PSIR for cortical lesion detection at 3T MRI?
Based on the application of newer magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acquisition sequences, the detection of cortical lesions (CL) in multiple sclerosis (MS) has significantly improved. Double inversion recovery (DIR) at 3T has increased the detection sensitivity and classification specificity when combined with phase sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR). Previous findings with 3D magnetization prepared rapid acquisition with gradient echo (MPRAGE) sequences, showed improved classification specificity of purely intracortical (IC) and mixed (MX) lesions, compared to the classification based on DIR/PSIR. Direct comparison between the detection of CL by 3D MPRAGE and by DIR/PSIR at 3T has not been evaluated. ⋯ Combination DIR/PSIR at 3T is superior to 3D MPRAGE for detection of cortical gray matter lesions in MS. The contrast-to-noise ratio of CL appears to be inferior on the MPRAGE images relative to DIR/PSIR.
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Mult Scler Relat Disord · Jan 2014
NMO spectrum disorders comprise the major portion of CNS inflammatory diseases in Thai patients: A cross sectional study.
Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is more prevalent than multiple sclerosis (MS) in the Asian population. AQP4-IgG as a specific biomarker for NMO has not been systematically validated in Thai patients. ⋯ NMOSD is more common than MS in Thai patients. Moreover, AQP4-IgG is highly specific for NMOSD. Spinal MRI can effectively distinguish NMOSD from MS patients. AQP4-IgG seropositivity is highly correlated with females and the presence of optic neuritis.