Manual segmentation of MS cortical lesions using MRI: A comparison of 3 MRI reading protocols

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Double inversion recovery has been suggested as the MR imaging contrast of choice for segmenting cortical lesions in patients with multiple sclerosis. In this study, we sought to determine the utility of double inversion recovery for cortical lesion identification by comparing 3 MR imaging reading protocols that combine different MR imaging contrasts. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-five patients with relapsing-remitting MS and 3 with secondary-progressive MS were imaged with 3TMRimaging by using double inversion recovery, dual fast spin-echo proton-density/T2-weighted, 3D FLAIR, and 3D T1-weighted imaging sequences. Lesions affecting the cortewere manually segmented by using the following 3 MR imaging reading protocols: Protocol 1 (P1) used all available MR imaging contrasts; protocol 2 (P2) used all the available contrasts except for double inversion recovery; and protocol 3(P3) used only double inversion recovery. RESULTS: Sihundred forty-three cortical lesions were identified with P1 (mean = 22.96); 633, with P2 (mean = 22.6); and 280, with P3 (mean = 10). The counts obtained by using P1 and P2 were not significantly different (P = .93). The counts obtained by using P3 were significantly smaller than those obtained by using either P1 (P