Author Of 1 Presentation
P0598 - LesionQuant for assessment of MRI in multiple sclerosis- a promising supplement to the visual scan inspection (ID 670)
Abstract
Background
Quantitative measurements of lesion volume, lesion count, distribution of lesions and brain atrophy have a potentially significant value for evaluating disease progression in multiple sclerosis (MS).
Objectives
We wanted to investigate whether utilizing a software designed for evaluating MRI data in MS would be more sensitive and clinically useful compared to the visual neuro-radiological evaluation.
Methods
A group of 56 MS patients (mean age 35 years, 70 % females and 96 % relapsing-remitting MS) was examined with brain MRI one and five years after being diagosed with MS. The T1 and FLAIR brain MRI sequences for all patients were analyzed using the LesionQuant (LQ) software. The resulting LQ output was compared with data from structured visual evaluations of the MRI scans performed by a neuro-radilogist, includning assessements of atrophy and lesion count. Correlations with clinical tests, like the timed 25- foot walk test (T25-FW), were performed to explore additional value of LQ analyses compared to visual assessments.
Results
Lesion count assessments by LQ and by the neuro-radiologist were significantly correlated one year (cor=0.92, p=2.2x10¯16) and five years (cor=0.84, p=2.7x10¯16) after diagnosis. LQ detected a reduction in whole brain percentile >10 in 10 patients across the time-points, whereas the neuro-radiologist assessment identified six of these. The neuro-radiologist additionally identified five patients with increased atrophy in the follow-up period, all of them displayed decreasing low whole brain percentiles (median 11, range 8-28) in the LQ analysis. A significant positive correlation was identified between lesion volume measured by LQ and test performance of T25-FW both at one year (t=3.08, p=3.2x10¯3) and five years (t=3.72, p=4.8x10¯4) after diagnosis, while we found no association between visual inspection and the clinical tests.
Conclusions
For the number of MS lesions at both time-points, we demonstrated strong correlations between the assessments done by LQ and the neuro-radilogist. Lesion volume evaluated with LQ correlated with T25-FW performance. LQ-analyses were more sensitive in capturing brain atrophy than the visual neuro-radiological evaluation. In conclusion, LQ seems like a promising supplement to the evaluation performed by neuro-radiologists, providing an automated tool for evaluating lesions and brain volume in MS patiens in both a longitudinal and cross-sectional setting.