Magnetic resonance imaging characteristics of brain lesions in myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody associated demyelinating diseases and aquaporin-4 antibody positive neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the distribution and morphological characteristics of brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) lesions in patients with myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) antibody related demyelinating diseases and aquaporin-4 (AQP4) antibody positive neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD) and their clinical value in early diagnosis.Methods:A total of 35 patients with MOG antibody related demyelinating diseases [20 males and 15 females; aged 31 (25, 43) years] and 36 patients with AQP4 antibody positive NMOSD [3 males and 33 females; aged 42 (29, 54) years] were collected retrospectively from September 2018 to June 2021 in Chenzhou First People′s Hospital and the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University which were classified as MOG group and AQP4 positive group respectively. All patients underwent routine cranial MRI scanning before treatment and the location, shape and quantity of intracranial lesions were recorded. Wilcoxon rank sum test was used to compare the number of different types of lesions between the two groups. Logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the significance of different lesions for the two diseases.Results:There were 7 types of lesions with significant differences in different parts and shapes. Stepwise Logistic regression showed that cortical and juxtacortical lesions ( OR=21.91, 95% CI 3.09-61.69, P<0.05) and infratentorial peripheral white matter lesions ( OR=10.48, 95% CI 2.00-18.89, P<0.05) were the most important risk factors in the MOG group. The incidence of cortical and juxtacortical lesions in the MOG group was 51.4% (18/35), which was higher than that in the AQP4 positive group (2.8%, 1/36; χ2=19.02, P<0.01). The incidence of infratentorial peripheral white matter lesions in the MOG group was 31.4% (11/35), which was higher than that in the AQP4 positive group (5.6%, 2/36; χ2=6.31, P<0.05). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve showed that peripheral lesions [including 6 types of lesions such as supratentorial soft meningitis, cortical encephalitis, cortical and juxtacortical lesions, infratentorial soft meningitis, infratentorial soft meningeal demyelination and infratentorial peripheral lesions, area under curve (AUC)=0.93] were more important than cortical and juxtacortical lesions (AUC=0.75) and central lesions (supratentorial paraventricular white matter lesions, diencephalon, infratentorial paraventricular lesions,AUC=0.64), which had higher diagnostic efficiency. Conclusions:The incidence of intracranial lesions in MOG antibody related demyelinating disease was higher than that in AQP4 positive NMOSD, and the distribution and morphology of intracranial MRI lesions in the two diseases had their characteristic manifestations. Identifying the distribution patterns of peripheral lesions (distributed along pia mater) and central lesions (distributed along ependyma) had a certain reference significance for distinguishing the two groups of diseases.