A preliminary study comparing the sensitivity of serial monthly enhanced MRI after standard and triple dose gadolinium-DTPA for monitoring disease activity in primary progressive multiple sclerosis.

Abstract

We performed this study to evaluate and compare the numbers of total and new enhancing lesions detected on serial monthly brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) after the injection of a standard dose (SD) and a triple dose (TD) of gadolinium-DTPA (Gd) in patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS). Every 4 weeks for 3 months and in two separate sessions, MRI scans were obtained from 5 patients with PPMS, 5 (early) and 20 minutes (delayed) after SD (0.1 mmol/kg) or TD (0.3 mmol/kg) Gd injection. In 2 patients, T1-weighted scans with a magnetization transfer pulse (MT) after SD and TD injection were also obtained. There were 13 enhancing lesions (5 of which were new) on the early SD scans, 15 (5 new) on the delayed SD scans, 17 (6 new) on the early TD scans and 18 (7 new) on the delayed TD scans. TD MRI scans detected more enhancing lesions than SD scans in 3 patients (two of them were those with the lowest disability). The application of the MT pulse did not change the numbers of enhancing lesions seen after the injection of SD and TD of Gd in the remaining two patients. No side effects were reported and no significant changes in blood test parameters were found throughout the study. Our results suggest that serial monthly TD MRI, delayed scanning, MT T1-weighted scans or their combination, although safe, have a limited role for monitoring disease evolution in patients with PPMS.