Monday, December 2 | 9:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m. | M2-SPNR-9 | Learning Center
Is patient age linked to multiple sclerosis (MS) lesion outcomes? Research to be presented Monday morning has found that it is.
MS lesions vary in their severity and in the intensity of chronic inflammation, and older patient age has been associated with higher levels of both, explained a team led by medical student and presenter Madelyn Hansen of the University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia. But it has remained unclear whether lesion outcomes are influenced by the timing of their development within a patient's lifespan, the group wrote in an abstract about the research.
"Identifying factors explaining lesion outcome may provide important prognostic information," Hansen and colleagues noted.
The investigators used 7-tesla MRI to quantify tissue injury (via T1 relaxation mapping) and to identify inflammation (via T2*-weighted phases) in a study that included 10 individuals with multiple sclerosis who underwent a research 7-tesla MRI exam and had data from prior conventional MR imaging.
The researchers identified 47 historical MRI findings related to the individuals' MS, and 165 new lesions on 7-tesla MRI (of these, 17 indicated chronic inflammation). Their main finding was that patient age at the time of new lesion identification on 7-tesla MRI was significantly associated with an increase in both lesion T1 relaxation and odds of inflammation classification: For every one-year increase in patient age, new lesions demonstrated an average increase in T1 relaxation of 22 milliseconds.
The study results could help clinicians better understand the progression of multiple sclerosis.
"[Our] data indicates that patient age at the time of lesion formation plays a role in [lesion] variability as lesion T1 and [chronic inflammation] risk both increased with age, suggesting greater focal injury or impaired repair mechanisms," the group concluded.
More information on the poster will be available at McCormick Place.
