Hagen H. Kitzler1,
Hannes Wahl1, Jason Su2, Nora Nilles1,
Henning Schmitz-Peiffer3, Tjalf Ziemssen3, Sean C. L.
Deoni4, Brian K. Rutt2
1Neuroradiology
Department, Technische Universitaet, Dresden, SN, Germany; 2Radiology
Department, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, United States; 3Neurology
Department, Technische Universitaet, Dresden, SN, Germany; 4Engineering
Department, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States
Multi-component Driven Equilibrium Single Pulse Observation of T1 and T2 (mcDESPOT) was applied on Clinically Isolated Syndrom (CIS) patients in a longitudinal trial to investigate the potential sensitivity of mcDESPOT-derived measures in detecting early and conventionally invisible disease-related myelin loss. The inter-subject variance of MWF was higher than the scanning intra-subject variance proofing the consistency of repeated measurements. Significantly reduced values of Myelin Water Fraction (MWF) were found in white matter lesions and a correlation between time since symptom onset and the decrease of the Parenchymal Volume Fraction (PVF) was revealed in preliminary baseline scans.