Utility of shape evolution and displacement in the classification of chronic multiple sclerosis lesions

Abstract

The accurate recognition of multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions is challenged by the high sensitivity and imperfect specificity of MRI. To examine whether longitudinal changes in volume, surface area, 3-dimensional (3D) displacement (i.e. change in lesion position), and 3D deformation (i.e. change in lesion shape) could inform on the origin of supratentorial brain lesions, we prospectively enrolled 23 patients with MS and 11 patients with small vessel disease (SVD) and performed standardized 3-T 3D brain MRI studies. Bayesian linear mixed effects regression models were constructed to evaluate associations between changes in lesion morphology and disease state. A total of 248 MS and 157 SVD lesions were studied. Individual MS lesions demonstrated significant decreases in volume < 3.75mm3 (p = 0.04), greater shifts in 3D displacement by 23.4% with increasing duration between MRI time points (p = 0.007), and greater transitions to a more non-spherical shape (p < 0.0001). If 62.2% of lesions within a given MRI study had a calculated theoretical radius > 2.49 based on deviation from a perfect 3D sphere, a 92.7% in-sample and 91.2% out-of-sample accuracy was identified for the diagnosis of MS. Longitudinal 3D shape evolution and displacement characteristics may improve lesion classification, adding to MRI techniques aimed at improving lesion specificity.

Lesion size and shape in central vein sign assessment for multiple sclerosis diagnosis: An in vivo and postmortem MRI study

“…Previous studies demonstrated that MS lesions are more likely to take on an ovoid shape, which is not surprising since the veins at the center of these lesions are linear. 27,28 Our results expand on this work by showing that CVS+ lesions are more ovoid, as defined by the FALD measurements, than their CVS− counterparts, and this difference is greater in MS vs non-MS cases. It would be interesting to explore in future work whether simple information gleaned from lesion shape characteristics could be an independent predictor of their CVS status.…”

The diagnostic value of the central vein sign in radiologically isolated syndrome

“…CVS is not the only surrogate marker for MS and RIS lesions. MS lesions incur deformation and displacement on longitudinal 3D scans, transitioning both in shape and location within the CNS 52 . Changes also influence the direction and magnitude of volume 53 .…”

Selective vulnerability of brainstem and cervical spinal cord regions in people with non-progressive multiple sclerosis of Black or African American and European ancestry

“…Within the specified region of interest, surface complexity was analyzed using maximum curvature analysis, a metric providing the local maximum curvature on discretized triangular mesh surface representations, using proprietary in-house developed computational topography software. 10,15,20 For the curvature values, zero represented baseline for determining the degree of change between timepoints with negative mean values indicating a more concave surface and positive mean values reflecting more convex features.…”