A PRELIMINARY-STUDY INTO THE SENSITIVITY OF DISEASE-ACTIVITY DETECTION BY SERIAL WEEKLY MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING IN MULTIPLE-SCLEROSIS

Long TR and gadolinium enhanced spin echo brain MRI was performed week ly for three months in three patients with relapsing-remitting or seco ndary progressive multiple sclerosis. During the study, 38 new enhanci ng lesions were seen; 11 showed enhancement for less than four weeks, and two enhanced on only one scan. All 16 new lesions seen on long TR scans showed initial enhancement. When only every fourth (monthly) sca n was analysed, a total of 33 new enhancing lesions were seen. Subject to confirmation in a larger cohort, the results suggest: (a) that blo od brain barrier leakage is an invariable event in new lesion developm ent in relapsing-remitting and secondary progressive multiple sclerosi s; (b) the small increase in sensitivity of weekly scanning does not j ustify its use in preference to monthly scanning when monitoring treat ments.