Clinics

The Multiple Sclerosis Clinic at UCSF

Clinical activities take place at the UCSF Multiple Sclerosis Center (www.ucsf.edu/msc), which is housed within a newly renovated suite adjacent to the UCSF Moffitt and Long hospitals on the UCSF main campus. The MS Center is staffed by 7 neurologists, one full-time nurse clinician, one full-time research coordinator, two full-time neuropsychologists, and two full-time receptionists. The Center has 2,262 square feet of dedicated space including a waiting room, accessible bathroom, reception area, 4 exam rooms, a laboratory, a conference room, and offices for all MS Center personnel and support staff.

All rooms are equipped with network computers that are interconnected through an on-site server. The MS Center maintains files on more than 2200 fully characterized MS patients who are followed at the clinic every 6-12 months. Approximately 400 new patients are seen at the MS Center each year and approximately 2500 visits are completed each year for clinical follow-up and clinical research projects (www.ucsf.edu/msc/research.htm).

The MS Advanced Imaging Laboratory

The MRI component of MS research program at UCSF is led by Dr. Pelletier. This laboratory is dedicated to the development and clinical evaluation of advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) methods at low, high and very high field strengths and is located at the China Basin Landing, San Francisco. It occupies office space on the third floor of the Center for Molecular Imaging managed by the Department of Radiology, which currently houses and operates two 1.5T GE Signa whole body clinical imagers and a new GE 3T scanner dedicated to clinical research. All scanners are equipped with the latest Excite operating system and multi-channel phased array coils and are connected by Ethernet to a network of Unix workstations to the laboratory, to the Department of Radiology PACs system and to the UCSF campus backbone. In addition to commercial software packages such as IDL, IMSL, and Matlab, the laboratory have developed a large number of custom designed software packages for reading different data formats, image and spectral reconstruction, multi-dimensional display and quantitative analysis of serial MR data.