Pooled analysis of multiple sclerosis findings on multisite 7 Tesla <scp>MRI</scp>: Protocol and initial observations

Although 7 T MRI research has contributed much to our understanding of multiple sclerosis (MS) pathology, most prior data has come from small, single-center studies with varying methods. In order to truly know if such findings have widespread applicability, multicenter methods and studies are needed. To address this, members of the North American Imaging in MS (NAIMS) Cooperative worked together to create a multicenter collaborative study of 7 T MRI in MS. In this manuscript, we describe the methods we have developed for the purpose of pooling together a large, retrospective dataset of 7 T MRIs acquired in multiple MS studies at five institutions. To date, this group has contributed five-hundred and twenty-eight 7 T MRI scans from 350 individuals with MS to a common data repository, with plans to continue to increase this sample size in the coming years. We have developed unified methods for image processing for data harmonization and lesion identification/segmentation. We report here our initial observations on intersite differences in acquisition, which includes site/device differences in brain coverage and image quality. We also report on the development of our methods and training of image evaluators, which resulted in median Dice Similarity Coefficients for trained raters' annotation of cortical and deep gray matter lesions, paramagnetic rim lesions, and meningeal enhancement between 0.73 and 0.82 compared to final consensus masks. We expect this publication to act as a resource for other investigators aiming to combine multicenter 7 T MRI datasets for the study of MS, in addition to providing a methodological reference for all future analysis projects to stem from the development of this dataset.

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Publication Details

Journal
Human Brain Mapping
Published
2024-08-15
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.26816
Citations
5
Primary Topic
Multiple Sclerosis Research Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
2.12

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article

Pooled analysis of multiple sclerosis findings on multisite 7 Tesla MRI: Protocol and initial observations

Bretta Russell‐Schulz, Renxin Chu, Shannon Kolind, Shahamat Tauhid et al.
5 citations
Human Brain Mapping
Multiple Sclerosis Research Studies
2.12
article

Pooled analysis of multiple sclerosis findings on multisite 7 Tesla MRI: Protocol and initial observations

Bretta Russell‐Schulz, Renxin Chu, Shannon Kolind, Shahamat Tauhid, Daniel S. Reich, Anthony Traboulsee, Dumitru Fetco, Matthew K. Schindler, Sridar Narayanan, Rohit Bakshi, Jonathan Zurawski, Jonadab dos Santos Silva, Daniel M. Harrison, Seongjin Choi, David A. Rudko, Serhat Vahip Okar, Erin Beck, Molly Quattrucci, Alexis M. Callen, Matthew A. Greenwald, Zachary Vavasour
article en
5 citations

Abstract

Although 7 T MRI research has contributed much to our understanding of multiple sclerosis (MS) pathology, most prior data has come from small, single-center studies with varying methods. In order to truly know if such findings have widespread applicability, multicenter methods and studies are needed. To address this, members of the North American Imaging in MS (NAIMS) Cooperative worked together to create a multicenter collaborative study of 7 T MRI in MS. In this manuscript, we describe the methods we have developed for the purpose of pooling together a large, retrospective dataset of 7 T MRIs acquired in multiple MS studies at five institutions. To date, this group has contributed five-hundred and twenty-eight 7 T MRI scans from 350 individuals with MS to a common data repository, with plans to continue to increase this sample size in the coming years. We have developed unified methods for image processing for data harmonization and lesion identification/segmentation. We report here our initial observations on intersite differences in acquisition, which includes site/device differences in brain coverage and image quality. We also report on the development of our methods and training of image evaluators, which resulted in median Dice Similarity Coefficients for trained raters' annotation of cortical and deep gray matter lesions, paramagnetic rim lesions, and meningeal enhancement between 0.73 and 0.82 compared to final consensus masks. We expect this publication to act as a resource for other investigators aiming to combine multicenter 7 T MRI datasets for the study of MS, in addition to providing a methodological reference for all future analysis projects to stem from the development of this dataset.

Human Brain MappingVol. 45(12)
University of Maryland, Baltimore (US), Brigham and Women's Hospital (US), Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (CA), Harvard University (US), University of British Columbia (CA), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (US), NeuroRx Research (Canada) (CA), Baltimore VA Medical Center (US), VA Maryland Health Care System (US), McGill University (CA), University of Pennsylvania (US), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (US)
National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, Roche, Race to Erase MS, National Institutes of Health, EMD Serono, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Partnerships for the goals
Openalex Percentile: Top 13%
Multiple Sclerosis Research Studies
2.12
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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