Magnetic resonance imaging in multiple sclerosis

In 1983 the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland set up the Multiple Sclerosis NMR Research Group at the Institute of Neurology and the National Hospital, Queen Square. The first aim of the Group was to define the role of MRI in the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, and this Atlas represents a summary of that work. Our strategy was to determine the pattern of MRI abnormalities in clinically definite MS and to compare it with those of isolated clinical syndromes of the kind seen in MS (e.g. optic neuritis) and of other disorders with which MS can be confused clinically or radiologically. We have also been involved in a major program of experimental work designed to elucidate the origin of the abnormal signals in MRI. To describe this in full detail would go beyond the scope of the Atlas, but we have incorporated such results as far as they illuminate our clinical problems. The imager used was a 0.5 Tesla Picker superconducting system. Technical advances have been rapid since we began. Nevertheless, the quality of the images obtained at our relatively low field has enabled us to establish the patterns of abnormality in the brain in MS and the diseases which must be distinguished from it. (orig./MG)