Marcel Warntjes1,2, Anders Tisell1,3, Irene Håkansson4, and Peter Lundberg1
1Center for Medical Imaging Science and Visualization, Linköping, Sweden, 2SyntheticMR AB, Linköping, Sweden, 3Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Radiation Physics, Linköping, Sweden, 4Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Neurology, Linköping, Sweden
The rate of brain atrophy
in neuro-degenerative diseases is monitored using the brain parenchymal
fraction (BPF, the ratio of brain volume and intracranial volume). The true
atrophy, however, may be obscured by the simultaneous brain swelling due to
inflammatory processes, disease activity and medication. Measurement of the
average relaxation rates and proton density of the brain allows correction for
the presence of edemic water. The edema-corrected BPF showed a higher rate of
atrophy, 0.495%/year (p = 0.003), in comparison to the uncorrected BPF,
0.175%/year (p = 0.12), in a group of early-onset Multiple Sclerosis patients.
