Trial reportAJNR. American journal of neuroradiology2008
Medulla oblongata volume: a biomarker of spinal cord damage and disability in multiple sclerosis.
Trial report in AJNR. American journal of neuroradiology, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Neuroimaging markers and disability scales in multiple sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Dimethyl fumarate preserves brainstem and cervical spinal cord integrity in radiologically isolated syndrome.Journal of neurology · 2024Trial
- Neuroplasticity of the sensorimotor neural network associated with walking aid training in people with multiple sclerosis.Multiple sclerosis and related disorders · 2019Trial
- Region-Specific Adult Neural Stem Cell Niches of the Mediobasal Hypothalamus and Medulla Oblongata.Stem cell reviews and reports · 2026Review
- Machine learning for multiple sclerosis classification and disability prediction using clinical and MRI data.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2026Article
- Article
- Neuroimaging assessment of facility-bound severely-affected MS reveals the critical role of cortical gray matter pathology: results from the CASA-MS case-controlled study.Journal of neurology · 2024Article
- Spinal cord evaluation in multiple sclerosis: clinical and radiological associations, present and future.Brain communications · 2024Review
- Predictors of long-term disability in multiple sclerosis patients using routine magnetic resonance imaging data: A 15-year retrospective study.The neuroradiology journal · 2023Article
- Review
- Evolution of tongue somatosensory evoked potentials in people with multiple sclerosis.Multiple sclerosis and related disorders · 2020Article
- Accurate, rapid and reliable, fully automated MRI brainstem segmentation for application in multiple sclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases.Human brain mapping · 2019Article
- Applying causal models to explore the mechanism of action of simvastatin in progressive multiple sclerosis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- How changes in brain activity and connectivity are associated with motor performance in people with MS.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2018Review
- Assessing Repair in Multiple Sclerosis: Outcomes for Phase II Clinical Trials.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2017Review
- The Role of Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging Techniques in Multiple Sclerosis Clinical Trials.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2017Review
- The Role of T1-Weighted Derived Measures of Neurodegeneration for Assessing Disability Progression in Multiple Sclerosis.Frontiers in neurology · 2017Review
- Spinal cord MRI in multiple sclerosis--diagnostic, prognostic and clinical value.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2015Review
- Brain size and white matter content of cerebrospinal tracts determine the upper cervical cord area: evidence from structural brain MRI.Neuroradiology · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
background and purposeWhile brain MR imaging is routinely performed, the MR imaging assessment of spinal cord pathology in multiple sclerosis (MS) is less frequent in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to determine whether measurements of medulla oblongata volume (MOV) on routine brain MR imaging could serve as a biomarker of spinal cord damage and disability in MS. MATERIALS AND
methodsWe identified 45 patients with MS with both head and cervical spinal cord MR imaging and 29 age-matched and sex-matched healthy control subjects with head MR imaging. Disability was assessed by the expanded disability status scale (EDSS) and ambulation index (AI). MOV and upper cervical cord volume (UCCV) were manually segmented; semiautomated segmentation was used for brain parenchymal fraction (BPF). These measures were compared between groups, and linear regression models were built to predict disability.
resultsIn the patients, MOV correlated significantly with UCCV (r = 0.67), BPF (r = 0.45), disease duration (r = -0.64), age (r = -0.47), EDSS score (r = -0.49) and AI (r = -0.52). Volume loss of the medulla oblongata was -0.008 cm(3)/year of age in patients with MS, but no significant linear relationship with age was found for healthy control subjects. The patients had a smaller MOV (mean +/- SD, 1.02 +/- 0.17 cm(3)) than healthy control subjects (1.15 +/- 0.15 cm(3)), though BPF was unable to distinguish between these 2 groups. MOV was smaller in patients with progressive MS (secondary- progressive MS, 0.88 +/- 0.19 cm(3) and primary-progressive MS, 0.95 +/- 0.30 cm(3)) than in patients with relapsing-remitting MS (1.08 +/- 0.15 cm(3)). A model including both MOV and BPF better predicted AI than BPF alone (P = .04). Good reproducibility in MOV measurements was demonstrated for intrarater (intraclass correlation coefficient, 0.97), interrater (0.79), and scan rescan data (0.81).
conclusionMOV is associated with disability in MS and can serve as a biomarker of spinal cord damage.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.