Observational studyNeurology2025
Multiple Sclerosis-Specific Reference Curves for Brain Volumes to Explain Disease Severity.
Observational study in Neurology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- An automated quantitative report for multiple sclerosis using only 3D T2-fluid-attenuated inversion recovery MRI.Neuroradiology · 2026Article
- Multiple Sclerosis-Specific Reference Curves for Brain Volumes to Explain Disease Severity.Neurology · 2026Article
- Longitudinal MRI-based changes in intracranial volume and skull thickness observed in both metachromatic leukodystrophy and multiple sclerosis.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectivesBrain atrophy is relevant for understanding disease progression and treatment response in people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). Automatic brain volume-reporting tools often rely on healthy control (HC) reference curves to interpret brain volumes, whereas brain volume loss is different in pwMS. This observational study aimed to develop an MS-specific reference model for brain volumes and evaluate its performance compared with HC-based curves, as a proof-of-concept.
methodsParticipants, pwMS and HCs, from the Amsterdam MS cohort were included based on the availability of T1-weighted MR scans. Normalized brain volumes (NBVs) were obtained using commercially available software. The software program also provides NBV percentiles, based on age-specific and sex-specific HC curves, grouped into NBV quartiles, describing deviation from expected NBVs. Disease severity was determined with the MS severity score (MSSS), Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT), and 9-Hole Peg Test (9HPT). An MS-specific model was developed by regressing NBVs against age, sex, disease duration, and MS phenotype. The resulting MS model was also used to classify pwMS into quartiles describing deviation from expected NBV, given the modeled patient characteristics, with leave-one-out predictions. Quartile classification from HC-based and MS-based reference curves was compared with MSSS using analysis of variance (ANOVA).
resultsRegressions for NBVs from 713 pwMS and 259 HCs (mean age: 49.1 ± 9.7 and 48.3 ± 10.1, %female: 70.4% and 67.2%, respectively) were significant for age, sex, disease duration, and phenotype, which were included in the MS-specific model. MS-specific model quartile designations significantly improved associations with MSSS values ( DISCUSSION: NBV values derived from an MS-specific reference model offer improved relevance for assessing disease severity compared with curves derived from age-specific and sex-specific HC reference models. Improving the model toward application in individual people could enhance clinical implementation.
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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.