Marisa McGinley, DO: Using Quantitative MRI in Multiple Sclerosis

“It’s an interesting concept—we obviously want to be using quantitative MRI—but we’re not quite sure how to define meaningful changes in that.”

The idea of using quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has begun to be floated around in the multiple sclerosis field as a possible improvement to measuring patient outcomes over time. The process is defined as when maps of meaningful physical or chemical variables that can be measured in physical units are obtained and compared between tissue regions and among subjects.¹

Marisa McGinley, DO, and her colleagues at Cleveland Clinic’s Mellen Center for MS have been exploring the use of quantitative MRI with their patients to determine how best to identify meaningful changes in measurements. To do so, they sought to determine “cut points” for individual patients to help in the interpreting of the data with regard to meaningful life situations.

At the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in MS (ACTRIMS) Forum in Dallas, Texas, the staff neurologist at the Mellen Center shared her experiences thus far with the process. She detailed the findings from a poster the group presented of the cohort of patients that they evaluated quantitative MRI in.

To find out more about the group’s work, NeurologyLive^® spoke with McGinley in an interview.

REFERENCE

Pierpaoli C. Quantitative brain MRI. Top Magn Reson Imaging. 2010;21(2):63. doi: 10.1097/RMR.0b013e31821e56f8