BERLIN – Spinal cord volume deficits in patients with multiple sclerosis may contribute to clinical disability that appears out of proportion to lesion load on brain imaging, according to new research.
Kari Oakes/MDedge News
Dr. Michaela Andelova
In a pool of 362 patients with mild to moderate MS-related disability but identical white matter lesion load identified by MRI, those with higher disability had significantly lower spinal cord volumes when compared against those with disability scores in the mild range (P less than .001).
Though brain MRI is a key tool used to track disease severity and progression in MS, some patients have relatively high disability but a low burden of white matter intracerebral lesions on MRI. Little is known about spinal cord volume in MS patients with pronounced dissociation between intracerebral lesion load and disability, Michaela Andelova, MD, said in an interview during a poster session at the annual congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis.
Dr. Andelova, of Charles University, Prague, said that she and her colleagues hypothesized that spinal cord volume would differ between patients who had varying levels of disability, despite identical white matter lesion load.
To test this, she and her colleagues looked at records of 1,245 patients with relapsing-remitting MS. They divided them into three groups by severity of clinical disability, and also by extent of cerebral T2 hyperintense lesion load. The investigators identified a group of patients (n = 53) whose total volume of T2-weighted hyperintense lesions was less than 3 mL, but whose Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) scores were at least 3.5; this was the low lesion load/high disability (LLHD) group.
Dr. Andelova and her colleagues then identified another group of patients (n = 71) who had a volume of T2-weighted hyperintensities that was greater than 9 mL, but whose EDSS score was less than 1.5. This was the high lesion load/low disability (HLLD) group.
The remaining patients (n = 1,121), who did not have these paradoxical associations, were analyzed separately.
For all patients, mean upper cervical cord area (MUCCA) was also measured. Using images acquired by a 3 T MRI scanner, MUCCA was calculated as the mean sum of spinal cord area in 21 slices centered at the C3/4 intervertebral disk, using an in-house, semiautomated method.
“Despite higher disability, LLHD patients demonstrated significantly higher normalized total brain volume, higher normalized volumes of thalamus and callosum, and smaller lateral ventricles than [the] HLLD group,” wrote Dr. Andelova and her collaborators.
However, the LLHD patients had MUCCA values that were significantly lower than the other groups: The nonparadoxical group’s mean MUCCA was 84.02 mm2, while the HLLD group had a mean MUCCA of 85.75 mm2. This difference was not statistically significant. By contrast, the LLHD group’s mean MUCCA was significantly smaller, at 80.40 mm2 (P = .023 versus nonparadoxical patients, and P = .007 versus HLLD patients).
Looking at the data another way, Dr. Andelova and her colleagues compared 362 evenly divided patients with moderate disability (EDSS 3.5-6.5) with matched patients who had mild MS-related disability (EDSS less than 3) and identical cerebral lesion loads. They found that MUCCA was significantly smaller in the moderate disability group (78.86 versus 84.44 mm2; P less than .001).
In addition to having identical lesions loads, the mild and moderate disability groups didn’t differ significantly in normalized total brain volume or regional brain volumes. The group with moderate disability did have slightly less white matter volume (P = .039), Dr. Andelova pointed out.
All differences found between groups retained statistical significance even after adjustment for such potential confounders as age, sex, and duration of disease, Dr. Andelova said.
“Reduced spinal cord volume may explain part of the clinical-radiological paradox in patients who have high disability despite low intracranial lesion load,” Dr. Andelova and her collaborators wrote. “In line with this finding, relatively preserved spinal cord volume may be associated with functional reserve and less physical disability in patients with low disability despite high cerebral lesion load.”
Further work looking more precisely at cerebral lesion distribution and quantitative MRI investigation of lesion distribution is in the works for Dr. Andelova and her collaborators. They are hoping to see some association between various distribution patterns and accelerated spinal atrophy.
The research was supported by the Czech government. Dr. Andelova and several of her collaborators reported financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies.
SOURCE: Andelova M et al. Mult Scler. 2018;24(Suppl 2):211, Abstract P477.