Comparison of Unenhanced and Gadolinium-Enhanced Imaging in Multiple Sclerosis: Is Contrast Needed for Routine Follow-Up MRI?

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Fig 1.
3D contrast-enhanced T1 MPRAGE (A) demonstrating a faint right frontal subcortical lesion (arrow) not visible on 3D DIR (B) and 2D FLAIR (C).
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Fig 2.
3D contrast-enhanced T1 MPRAGE (A) demonstrating a left periventricular enhancing lesion (arrow) in a region of confluent white matter lesions that is not detectable as new between the more recent 3D-DIR (B) and 2D-FLAIR (C) and prior 3D-DIR (D) and 2D-FLAIR (E).

Table 1:

The number of examinations categorized by T2 lesion burden and number of enhancing lesions

T2 Lesion Burden	No. of MR Imaging Examinations	No. of MR Imaging Enhancing Lesions					At Least 1
T2 Lesion Burden	No. of MR Imaging Examinations	0	1	2	3	4	At Least 1
Mild (<10 lesions)	47/252 (19%)	44	3				3/252 (6%)
Moderate (11–20 lesions)	89/252 (35%)	78	7	3		1	11/252 (12%)
Severe (>20 lesions)	116/252 (46%)	99	10	1	4	2	17/252 (15%)
Total	252	221	20	4	4	3	34/252 (13%)