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Abstract #2939

Proton MR spectroscopy of the thalamus in early relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis

Ivan Kirov 1 , Assaf Tal 1 , Kathryn Iwata 2 , Joseph Herbert 3 , and Oded Gonen 1

1 Radiology, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, United States, 2 School of Medicine, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, United States, 3 Multiple Sclerosis Comprehensive Care Center, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, United States

Despite a well-documented involvement of the thalamus in multiple sclerosis, its metabolism in early disease has not been studied. We used 3D multivoxel proton MR spectroscopy and software-generated segmentation masks to (i) determine the optimal tradeoff between partial volume and reproducibility; and to (ii) apply this threshold to study 18 recently diagnosed patients and 10 controls. Absolute concentrations of thalamic N-acetyl-aspartate, creatine, choline and myo-inositol were not different between the two groups, and there was no thalamic atrophy. We interpret these results as evidence for thalamic sparing, but note the very low levels of clinical disability and lesion load in our cohort.

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