The Correlation Between Whole-Brain N-Acetylaspartate Quantification and Multiple Sclerosis Severity Score

Daniel Rigotti¹, Nissa Perry¹, Joseph Herbert², Oded Gonen¹

Due to its homogeneity, there remains no accurate way to quickly assess current disease status of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RR-MS). We combine data from the Multiple Sclerosis Severity Scale (MSSS), an EDSS-based marker sensitive to small lesions in eloquent areas, with whol-brain N-acetylaspartate (WBNAA), a marker specific for diffuse neurodegeneration in a large cohort of MS patients (including ~50 clinically-confirmed benign). We show a near unanimous concurrence of the two methods in the benign patients. Additionally, using the confirmed benigns as an internal standard,~20% of non-benigns meet the both definitions of benign, which is similar to the accepted prevalence.