Ivan I. Kirov1, Vishal Patil1, James Babb1, Henry Rusinek1, Joseph Herbert2, Oded Gonen1
1Radiology, NYU SOM, New York, NY, USA; 2Neurology, NYU SOM, New York, NY, USA
To test the hypothesis that widespread chronic pathogenesis precedes axonal damage in MRI normal-appearing tissue in relapsing-remitting MS, we used 3D proton MR spectroscopy at 3 T to quantify the concentrations of NAA, Cr, Cho and mI in a 360 cm3 volume of interest (VOI) about the corpus callosum (mostly white matter). Twenty-one recently diagnosed mildly disabled patients and 15 matched controls were enrolled. The results reveal that patients VOI tissue volume fraction and NAA concentration were not different from controls. In contrast, the patients Cr, Cho and mI levels were 9%, 14% and 20%, higher than the controls.