TY - JOUR T1 - MR Imaging Quantitation of Gray Matter Involvement in Multiple Sclerosis and Its Correlation with Disability Measures and Neurocognitive Testing JF - American Journal of Neuroradiology JO - Am. J. Neuroradiol. SP - 1613 LP - 1618 VL - 20 IS - 9 AU - Isabelle Catalaa AU - Jennifer C. Fulton AU - Xuang Zhang AU - Jayarm K. Udupa AU - Dennis Kolson AU - Murry Grossman AU - Lougang Wei AU - Joseph C. McGowan AU - Marcia Polansky AU - Robert I. Grossman Y1 - 1999/10/01 UR - http://www.ajnr.org/content/20/9/1613.abstract N2 - BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common inflammatory disease of the central nervous system and manifests both physical and neurocognitive disabilities. Although predominantly a disease of the white matter, MS is also characterized by lesions in the gray matter. Previous pathologic studies have found that cortical and deep gray matter lesions comprised 5% and 4%, respectively, of total lesions. Using software for lesion detection and quantitation, our study was designed to determine MS involvement in the cortical and deep gray matter and to correlate gray matter lesion load with neurocognitive function and the Kurtzke Expanded Disability Status Scale.METHODS: Using a semiautomated segmentation algorithm that detected and delineated all possible brain MS lesions on MR images, we investigated gray matter lesion volume in 18 patients with untreated relapsing-remitting MS. Cortical and deep gray matter lesions then were correlated with the neurocognitive and physical disability measurements.RESULTS: We found that cortical gray matter lesions comprised approximately 5.7% of the total lesion volume, whereas deep gray matter lesions comprised another 4.6% in this patient cohort. No strong correlations were found between gray matter lesions and disability status or neurocognitive function.CONCLUSION: These results are similar to those found in previous pathologic studies. The cortical lesion load in cases of relapsing-remitting MS, as measured by MR imaging, represents less than 6% of the total lesion volume and does not correlate with disability measures or neurocognitive tests. ER -