ASSESSMENT OF MRI CRITERIA FOR MS IN JAPANESE MS AND HAM TSP/

We evaluated the usefulness of the MRI criteria for multiple sclerosis (MS) proposed by Paty et al and Fazekas et al in 36 Japanese MS patie nts, using HTLV-I-associated myelopathy (KAM)/tropical spastic parapar esis (TSP) as the control. Although 30 of 36 HAM/TSP patients had mult iple white matter lesions on T-2-weighted cranial MRI, only two fulfil led the MRI criteria for MS. At the same time, 31 of the 36 MS patient s fulfilled the primary MRI criterion, yielding 93% specificity and 86 % sensitivity for the criterion. MS has disease-specific MRI abnormali ties.