Two-Year Serial Whole-Brain N-Acetylaspartate in Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Patients

Daniel Rigotti¹, Matilde Inglese¹, Ivan Kirov¹, Nissa Perry¹, Joseph Herbert², Robert I. Grossman¹, Oded Gonen¹

We test the hypotheses that: relapsing-remitting (RR) MS patients exhibit quantifiable whole-brain N-acetylaspartate (WBNAA) decline, that is more sensitive than clinical changes; and may provide a practical outcomes for proof-of-concept trials. WBNAA was collected from 19 RR MS patients 335 years-old of 4728 months disease duration. Patients baseline WBNAA, 10.51.7mM, was significantly lower than controls 12.31.3mM-(p0.002) and declined significantly (5%/year- p0.002) while controls did not (0.4%/year-p0.7). Similarly, patients brain volume declined significantly (0.5%/year- p0.0001, controls:0.2%/year-p=0.08) with no significant EDSS changes. These results indicate that WBNAA is a longitudinally sensitive marker for neurodegeneration and may be suitable for larger multi-center trials.