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TUESDAY, July 3, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Brain volume loss (BVL) has nonlinear dynamics and limited reproducibility as a marker of therapeutic response in multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study published online July 2 in JAMA Neurology<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Mag\u00ed Andorra, from the University of Barcelona in Spain, and colleagues enrolled a cohort of 140 patients who had clinically isolated syndrome or MS. Participants underwent a series of annual magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Short-term repeatability of the MRI measurements and annual BVL were assessed using images from two cohorts of healthy volunteers (34 and 20 participants, respectively).<\/p>\n
The researchers found that patients underwent four MRI scans with a median interscan period of 364 days. The healthy volunteers underwent two MRI scans with a median of 24.5 and 384.5 days for the short- and long-term MRI follow-up, respectively. In the first five years after MS onset, the BVL rates were higher, with a direct correlation with steroids and inverse association with age at onset of MS. For whole-brain volume loss, the reproducibility of Jacobian Integration (JI) and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain Software Library (FSL) was similar; JI gave more precise, less biased estimates than FSL for specific brain regions.<\/p>\n
“The proposed BVL threshold of less than 0.4 percent per year as a marker of therapeutic efficiency should be reconsidered because of the different dynamics of BVL as MS progresses,” the authors write.<\/p>\n
Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.<\/p>\n