Probing predictive chronic clinical and imaging-based disease activity markers in Multiple Sclerosis

We are planning a proposal focusing on chronic clinical and especially imaging-based disease activity in Multiple Sclerosis (MS), as well as on smoldering inflammation, with an emphasis on the potential predictive information provided by susceptibility imaging as our main imaging focus. We are currently in the process of selecting potential consortium partners.

A)      Clinically, we are particularly interested in the long-term prognostic value of detecting chronically active lesions in relation to the development of disease progression (secondary progression, PIRA and RAW), disease severity and response to treatment, as well as in relation to established volumetric MRI biomarkers (lesion burden and global or regional atrophy). Not much is known about this yet, and diagnostic strategies are still lacking.

B)      From a technical perspective, we remain interested in predicting chronic activity using AI tools, as it has already become clear from manual classification that chronically active lesions also exhibit specific conventional characteristics. Recently, we have succeeded in predicting the deterioration of individual clinical tests. This is promising and supports the idea of pattern recognition.

C)      We would also like to incorporate sNfL/GFAP measurements as liquid biomarkers into the framework for predictive biomarkers.