Rajakumar Nagarajan1, Manoj K. Sarma1, April Thames2, Vanessa Steriff3, Jonathan Truong4, Homayoon Khanlou5, Steven Castellon2, Charles H. Hinkin2, M.Albert Thomas<sup
1Radiological Sciences, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA, United States; 2UCLA Department of Psychiatry; 3West Los Angeles VA; 4Kaiser Permanente; 5AIDS Healthcare Foundation
Hepatitis C (HCV) is a major cause of liver-related morbidity and mortality. A high proportion of patients never experience symptoms. Peginterferon and ribavirin is the recommended treatment for hepatitis C. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) enables the noninvasive measurement of biochemical information in vivo. Two-dimensional (2D) localized correlated spectroscopy (L-COSY) combined with prior knowledge fitting (ProFit) enables unambiguous detection of metabolites and quantitation of more than ten metabolites. Our preliminary results show that significantly decreased GABA and significantly increased inositol, total choline and glutathione ratios in HCV patients compared to healthy controls.