A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of interferon beta-1b in secondary progressive multiple sclerosis: Magnetic resonance imaging results

MRI outcomes provide an objetive and sensitive evaluation of the efficacy of new thererapeutic agents on the evolving parthological process of multiple sclerosis (MS), therefore,serial MRI scanning was performed in all patients involved in a recent double-blind. placebo-controlled trial of interferon B-lb (IFNB-1b)in secondary progrossive MS .the trial was based in Europe. Seven hundred eighteen patients were recruited from 32 centers. All the patients underwent yearly proton density/T2-weighted brain MRI, from which total lesion load was quantified using a semiautomated local threshold method and on which the number of new and en-larging T2 lesions were counted. One hundred twenty-five patients underwent mothly gadolinium-enhanced MRI from months o to 6 and 18 to 24, in order to evaluare the effecc of treatment on the number and and volume of gadolinium-enhancing lesions. In 95 patients sequences were obtainned to allow measurement of the following purative markers of demyelination of axonal loss: cerebral atrophy spinal cord atrophy, T1 hypointense lesion load on pre- and post-gadolinium enhanced images, and brain magnetization transfer ratios. The results of MRI autcomes are presented.