This was another one I found very interesting, about the comparison of white matter and gray matter atrophy in MS:
A 4-Year Longitudinal Study of Gray Matter
Atrophy in Multiple Sclerosis Patients Elizabeth Fisher,
Jar-Chi Lee, Kunio Nakamura, Richard Rudick
This study found that atrophy rates increase with disease progression
(like the last study). WM atrophy happened at a fairly constant rate
over the progression of MS (CIS->RRMS->SPMS) at about 3X the
rate of controls. GM atrophy, however, accelerates with disease
progression going from about 3X to 8X to 14X the rate of
controls. They found a moderate correlation between GM atrophy and
EDSS. WM atrophy correlated with GM atrophy in RRMS, but not in
SPMS. They conclude that MS appears to be a predominantly GM disease.
This has big implications for how drugs are developed and approved
given our previous bias that it was strictly a WM disease.
Thanks for posting this. I'll have to go take a look.
I can understand your point on comparing results. I would think that in clinical trials for a specific disease that there would be a published standard for defining the measuring criteria!!! But, of course, this disease is so unpredictable and non-standard!
Take care, Pat :)