Individual vascular risk factors appear to affect MS-specific white matter brain lesions differently, with smoking and dyslipidaemia having a direct influence on pathology, researchers say.

A UK team compared brain MRIs of 92 people with MS who had no vascular risk factors with 106 people with MS who had one or more risk factors, including self-reported smoking, arterial hypertension, dyslipidaemia or diabetes mellitus.

The cases and controls were drawn from five centres and were age- and sex-matched, with patients excluded if they had experienced stroke or other neurological diseases.

The investigators, led by the John Radcliffe Hospital at Oxford, scored the MRIs for the number of Dawson’s fingers, juxtacortical lesions and U-shaped or S-shaped juxtacortical lesions.