Assessment of Dissemination in Time in Multiple Sclerosis Using a Single 3D T2-FLAIR magnetic resonance imaging Radiomic Signature

A single 3D T2-FLAIR radiomic signature distinguishes recent incident versus long-standing established MS lesion categories, achieving AUC 0.78 in an independent test cohort.

• Why it matters: Dissemination in time is key for MS lesion chronology, but contrast-enhanced and follow-up MRI approaches have limitations that motivate alternative ways to infer lesion timing.
• What they did: In 273 participants (1,311 MRI acquisitions), lesions were stratified by serial T2-FLAIR into R-I (appearing within two years) and LS-E (present for at least six years), then radiomic features trained an SVM using discovery (N=55), development (N=163), and held-out testing (N=55).
• The result: The SVM correctly classified 66% of R-I and 73% of LS-E lesions (AUC 0.78), and in exploratory CIS baseline MRI (N=64) about one in ten participants showed radiomic features compatible with LS-E at first event.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.