Magnetic Resonance Image in Monitor and Diagnosis of Patients with Neuromyelitis Optica

Abstract

This study was aimed to investigate the craniocerebral magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measurement and clinical characteristics of patients with neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and multiple sclerosis (MS). 50 patients with NMO (NMO group) and 50 patients with MS (MS group) were studied. The clinical manifestations, brain injury morphology, MRI signal characteristics, brain distribution characteristics, and related laboratory tests (serum aquaporin 4 [AQP4] antibody) were statistically analyzed. The results showed that the analysis of clinical manifestations of patients revealed that optic neuritis (37 cases) was the most common disease in NMO patients, and myelitis (16 cases) was more common in MS patients than NMO patients. There were significant differences in gender ratio, abnormal expression of brain MR1, positive serum AQP4-IgG, and other immune diseases and symptoms between the two groups ( $P$  < 0.05). When the lesions measured by MRI were located in the white matter area of the cerebral hemisphere, the image showed blurred edges and a relatively symmetrical distribution. When the lesions measured by MRI were located around the medulla oblongata, the lesions mainly involved the central gray matter and white matter of the spinal cord, with patchy and line-like long T1 and long T2 signals. Moreover, in the late stage of recurrence of spinal cord disease, severe spinal cord atrophy may occur. In conclusion, craniocerebral MRI measurement in NMO patients can provide more basis for the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of the disease, so as to improve the diagnostic level of NMO.