Guillaume Bonnier1,
Tilman Johannes Sumpf2, David Romanasco1, Alexis Roche1,
Myriam Schluep3, Renaud Du Pasquier3, Jens Frahm2,
Gunnar Krueger4, Cristina Granziera3
1ACIT,
EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland; 2biophysikalische Chemie Biomedizinische
NMR Forschungs GmbH, Max Planck Institute, Gttingen, Germany; 3Centre
Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland; 4Advanced
Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Healthcare IM S AW, Lausanne,
Switzerland
In this study, we investigated the sensitivity of ultrafast T2 relaxometry measurements (ca 3 min acquisition time for the whole brain) in early stages of multiple sclerosis. We extracted regions of interest (ROIs) using a software based on variational expectation-maximization tissue classification; we then performed a statistical analysis using permutation-based Hotelling tests, using age and gender as covariates and correction for family-wise error rate. Results show that white matter T2 values were significantly higher in patients than in controls, suggesting that ultrafast T2 sequence provides a valuable instrument to quantify the impact of MS in early stages of the disease.