Abstract #4050

Myelin-Related MRI Metrics Demonstrate Longitudinal Differences for Relapsing MS Patients Treated with Ocrelizumab or Inteferon Beta-1a Over 96 Weeks

Shannon Kolind^1,2, Irene Vavasour², Roger Tam², Lisa Tang³, Alexander Rauscher^2,4, Robert Carruthers¹, Rick White⁵, Victoria Levesque⁶, Hideki Garren⁶, David Clayton⁶, David Li², and Anthony Traboulsee¹

¹Neurology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ²Radiology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ³Biomedical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ⁴Pediatrics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ⁵Statistics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, ⁶Genentech, South San Francisco, CA, United States

Conventional MRI scans cannot evaluate disease-related changes in normal-appearing white matter, and have limited sensitivity for detecting changes in chronic lesions. In this work, we employed 2 quantitative MRI measures related to myelin content, myelin water fraction and magnetization transfer ratio, to evaluate the effects a potential novel therapy for multiple sclerosis (ocrelizumab) compared to a commonly-used therapy (interferon beta-1a). Over 2 years, these myelin-related measurements increased or remained stable in all regions for patients taking ocrelizumab, while they decreased for interferon beta-1a. These results support the use of quantitative MRI measures for more efficient, biologically specific clinical trial outcomes.

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