Dr Granziera and her colleagues also
wanted to investigate whether combining advanced MRI techniques with advanced biological markers could improve the understanding of physiopathological mechanisms of disease - as well as provide more sensitive methods to achieve a better correlation with clinical findings. Dr Granziera explains: “At the moment, the clinicoradiological correlation is very poor. One of the aims of this research is to improve the correlation by combining different kinds of information.” This information includes biomarkers of the disease together with sophisticated MRI data on tissue destruction and brain plasticity, e.g. what the brain is doing to react to the damage. “This plasticity usually explains why a patient might be
track longitudinal changes, the patients will return after two years. The next stage is to combine these new
detailed pictures and create a summary of patients’ brain/cerebellar structure and function. “We do have techniques that give us the opportunity to investigate brain neuronal networks, locally and globally,” adds Dr Granziera, “and they may give us important information about how the brain/cerebellum react to inflammatory damage in order to preserve function in the early stages of disease. “By better understanding the
mechanisms of functional and structural brain damage and plasticity in MS, we hope to be able to provide more advanced tools to monitor the patients,” she continues. “All of our patients are on
Project Information AT A GLANCE
Project Title: Advanced MRI techniques to investigate the physiopathology of multiple sclerosis
Project Objective: The research project applies high and ultra-high field advanced MRI techniques to investigate early biomarkers of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The ultimate goal of this research is to combine advanced MRI markers with serological data and clinical scores in order to provide a powerful non- invasive monitoring tool for MS.
Project Duration and Timing: 3 years September 2011 to August 2014
Project Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Multiple Sclerosis Society and Societé Académique Vaudoise
doing well even with excessive inflammation in the brain,” she notes. The
three-year study, currently one
year in, involved MS patients who were a maximum of six years from their first MS-related symptoms. Each patient received
an extensive cognitive
examination in addition to the standard neurological examination usually performed. In addition, all the patients donated blood to aid in the creation of a data-base of biological markers and, finally, underwent an advanced MRI scan. The six-year symptom time-frame is
classed as the early stage of MS diagnosis. “Of course, it is much easier to detect changes in more advanced patients,” Dr Granziera explains. “But we wanted to gather the most detailed information possible and the most potential lies with early-diagnosis patients. The applied advanced MRI techniques detect even tiny structural changes in the brain and the cerebellum and, subsequently, give a much more detailed picture of what the disease is doing to the brain.”
An ongoing project The project utilises a range of parameters
to quantify the level of tissue destruction and subsequent remodelling compared to a group of healthy control subjects. To
www.projectsmagazine.eu.com
“All of our patients are on therapy, so if our work allows us to detect subtle differences in patients’ responses to treatment, it opens the door to personalised medicine”
therapy, so if our work allows us to detect subtle differences in patients’ responses to treatment, it opens the door to personalised medicine. “Of course, this will not be possible in
three years but hopefully by the end of the study we will know whether it will be a good path to pursue in the future.” Adapting the study’s findings for
the
clinic is Dr Granziera’s ultimate goal. These multi-spectral data – of the damage the disease causes and the brain’s compensation as well as biological markers of the disease – means there is scope for the creation of a patient specific profile for everyone in the near future. In the meantime, we can take comfort in the fact that research such as this continues to develop the tools for early diagnosis and better prediction of the evolution of a disease notoriously varied in its path.
Project Partners: Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology Group (Siemens-CIBM, EPFL, Dr Krueger) and Neuroinflammatory Unit (Neurology Service, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, CHUV, Dr M. Schluep and Pr R. Du Pasquier).
Main Contact:
Dr Cristina Granziera Dr Granziera obtained her MD in 2001 at University of Padova (Italy) and her PhD in 2007 at the University of Lausanne. She subsequently certified as a general neurologist and currently devotes her research to translational application of advanced magnetic resonance techniques to inflammatory diseases like multiple sclerosis and neuro-HIV.
Contact: Tel: +41 79 5565687? Email:
cristina.granziera@
chuv.ch Web:
www.unil.ch/lren/page86473.html
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