Early diagnosis and understanding of multiple sclerosis These are two of the biggest challenges that neurology wants to overcome to safely combat this disease. He Bellvitge Hospital has identified a new MRI biomarker able to detect sources of chronic encephalitis associated with progressive forms of multiple sclerosis. The next step for researchers is to measure these paramagnetic edge lesions objectively. This will allow us to evaluate the prognostic and diagnostic value of this finding before moving on to the clinical phase.
One of the main architects of this discovery is the neuroradiologist from Bellvitge Hospital, Pablo Navalin. According to medical writing, this type of biomarker “allows objective and automated quantification of foci of chronic brain inflammation that may have prognostic value.” multiple sclerosisIn the words of the researcher, it is a “very variable disease.” Early detection of patients whose disability will progress is crucial. For this reason, it was decided to analyze the characteristics of lesions of the white matter of the brain, so-called paramagnetic marginal lesions.”
The clinical detection In patients with progressive forms, it often happens that the patient’s clinical condition deteriorates to such an extent that, according to Naval, “the achievable benefit is no longer as relevant.” For this reason, the MRI is a useful tool, but it hardly detects advanced sequences: “It is a difficult lesion to standardize, and therefore it is not taken into account in clinical guidelines
The specialist states that the study highlights that these injuries, when observed in a T1 sequence—the standard in magnetic resonance—are “very dark and quantifiable. The hypothesis is that there is active inflammation causing profound damage, and that’s why they are so dark; it’s like liquefied tissue. If they are chronic, Restore myelin and normal brightness. This allows the distinction of inactive chronic lesions, which are brighter than active ones.”
It is still too early to be sure that the discovery will be successful Recognize progressive forms of sclerosis early, which is why Naval called the discovery a “Replacement marker since paramagnetic marginal lesions have a prognostic value and these lesions can be detected more easily and objectively.
There have been a total of 20 injuries so far, and the objective pursued by the specialist is to obtain larger studies in order to “be able to Analyze new injuries. The idea is to carry out prospective research to evaluate the clinical applicability and impact of this biomarker.” For now, Bellvitge will be the only hospital to continue research in this direction, but Naval does not rule out adding more centers later to extrapolate the results to other contexts and patient types.
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