Irene Margaret Vavasour1, Shannon Heather
Kolind2, Cornelia Laule1, Burkhard Maedler3,
David K.B. Li1, Anthony L. Traboulsee4, Alex L. MacKay1,3
1Radiology, University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; 2FMRIB Centre, University of
Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; 3Physics and Astronomy, University
of British Columbia; 4Medicine, Univeristy of British Columbia
Twelve
multiple sclerosis subjects and 12 healthy age and gender matched controls
were scanned twice at a 6 month interval to compare histograms derived from
normal white matter (NWM), normal appearing white matter (NAWM) and multiple
sclerosis lesions. Myelin water fraction (MWF), geometric mean T2
(GMT2), fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity and the
eigenvalues were measured. Mean MWF and GMT2 histograms did not
differ between the two time points although histograms from NWM, NAWM and
lesions were different. Histograms from the diffusion metrics differed
slightly between month 0 and 6. T2 relaxation and diffusion
metrics give complementary information about MS tissue.