Region specific fractional anisotropy in diffusion tensor MR imaging reveals EDSS correlation in patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Background: Assessment of stage of disease in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in the setting of clinical studies is usually performed using categorical clinical scales such as the EDSS. More objective measures are desirable to quantitatively and sensitively assess the stage and progression of MS. Recently the non-invasive assessment of white matter lesions using diffusion tensor MR imaging (DTI) and analyzing fractional anisotropy (FA) in regions of interest (ROIs) became available. So far, no conclusive results were obtained when evaluating FA as a measure of disease severity in MS. Objective: To investig…