Jennifer E. Dixon1, Niraj Mistry2, Emma C. Tallantyre3, Christopher Tench2, Rasha Abdel-Fahim2, Tim Jaspan4, Paul S. Morgan5, Peter G. Morris1, Nikos Evangelou2
1Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom; 2Academic Division of Clinical Neurology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom; 3Department of Neurology, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom; 4Department of Radiology, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom; 5Department of Medical Physics, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom
Hyperintensities on conventional MRI are not specific for demyelination, often causing diagnostic delay and sometimes misdiagnosis of patients with suspected Multiple Sclerosis (MS). In-vivo T2*-weighted MRI at 7T has been shown to depict central blood vessels within lesions at a much higher rate in patients with established MS compared with patients with microangiopathic white-matter (WM) brain lesions. In this work, we prospectively assess the predictive value of T2*-weighted imaging at 7T for an eventual diagnosis of MS in patients who were unable to be diagnosed by a Neurologist and Neuroradiologist without further paraclinical testing and clinical follow-up.