Detailing intra-lesional venous lumen shrinking in multiple sclerosis investigated by sFLAIR MRI at 7-T

Intra-lesional venous lumen shrinking detectable by MRI was suggested as an in vivo marker of inflammation in multiple sclerosis (MS). In our study mean diameters of pre-, post- and intra-lesional venous sections were determined in 49 patients with MS or clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) using a pixel-wise analysis on susceptibility-weighted fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (sFLAIR) images and T2*-weighted (T2*w) imaging at 7 Tesla (T). We observed post-to-intra-lesional venous lumen shrinking on T2*w images (p = 0.036) in an analysis of 338 venous sections. Pre-to-intra-lesional venous lumen reduction was only detectable in less than 50 % of lesions and failed statistical significance when analysing T2*w (p = 0.325) and sFLAIR images (p = 0.258). In conclusion, thinning of intra-lesional veins in MS is—if detectable at all—probably less severe than previously reported, and affects only a minority of MS lesions.