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Updated: Jun 24, 2026
Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Multiple Sclerosis at 7.0 Tesla
Published on: February 19, 2021
Patients' stratification and correlation of brain magnetic resonance imaging parameters with disability progression
Manuela Vaneckova1, Zdenek Seidl, Jan Krasensky
1Department of Radiology, First Faculty of Medicine, General Teaching Hospital, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic. man.van@post.cz
Aims:
The objective was to correlate the change in the lesion load (LL) and brain atrophy in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) with progression of clinical disability, represented by the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), and to test if stratification of patients according to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) criteria can increase the predictive ability of MRI for MS clinical development.
Methods:
181 patients with clinically definite relapsing-remitting MS underwent MRI for a period of up to 5 years. Grouping of patients according to the LL value at the study entry revealed a substantial increase in the Spearman rank correlation coefficient R.
Results:
For the low LL cohort of patients, we found a statistically significant correlation (R up to -0.71 with p < 0.01) of a later increase in the EDSS score (years 4 and 5) with increased brain atrophy in the first 2 years. For the high LL group, we found a statistically significant correlation (R up to 0.72 with p < 0.01) of a later increase in the EDSS score (years 4 and 5) with an increase in the LL value in the first year.
Conclusions:
We conclude that stratification of patients according to the MRI criterion (LL) can increase the predictive ability of MRI.
