Spinal Cord Atrophy in Multiple Sclerosis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background And Purpose: Spinal cord atrophy (SCA) is an important emerging outcome measure in multiple sclerosis (MS); however, there is limited consensus on the magnitude and rate of atrophy. The objective of this study was to synthesize the available data on measures of SCA in MS.

Methods: Using published guidelines, relevant literature databases were searched between 1977 and 2017 for case-control or cohort studies reporting a quantitative measure of SCA in MS patients.

Quantitative spinal cord MRI in radiologically isolated syndrome.

Objectives: To assess whether quantitative spinal cord MRI (SC-MRI) measures, including atrophy, and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and magnetization transfer imaging metrics were different in radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS) vs healthy controls (HCs).

Methods: Twenty-four participants with RIS and 14 HCs underwent cervical SC-MRI on a 3T magnet. Manually segmented regions of interest circumscribing the spinal cord cross-sectional area (SC-CSA) between C3 and C4 were used to extract SC-CSA, fractional anisotropy, mean, perpendicular, and parallel diffusivity (MD, λ, and λ) and magnetization transfer ratio (MTR).