Efficacy of diffusion-weighted imaging in symptomatic and asymptomatic multiple sclerotic plaques

Introduction: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) currently accompanies clinical findings in disease diagnosis, patients’ follow-up, assessment of drugs complications, and evaluation of treatment response. Although contrast-enhanced MRI (CE-MRI) is considered as the imaging modality of choice for multiple sclerosis (MS), due to disease chronicity, applying multiple doses of gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) increases the risk of nephrogenic syndrome in patients with acute (ARF) and chronic renal syndromes (CRF). Moreover, the effect of gadolinium on the fetus is not well-known in pregnant patients. Therefore, this study evaluates the possibility of replacing postcontrast images with physiologically based MRI sequences such as diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC).