Abstract #5402

A longitudinal study of APT CEST contrast in the spinal cord of patients with multiple sclerosis at 3T

Richard Dylan Lawless^1,2, Quinn R Weinberg², Bailey Box², Samantha By³, Francesca Bagnato⁴, and Seth A Smith^1,2,5

¹Department of Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, ²Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States, ³Phillips Healthcare, Baltimore, MD, United States, ⁴Department of Neurology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States, ⁵Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, United States

Current clinical MRI sequences cannot characterize biochemical tissue changes within the spinal cord. Therefore, MRI biomarkers sensitive to biochemical tissue changes are needed. Amide proton transfer chemical exchange saturation transfer (APT CEST) is an emerging MRI contrast method sensitive to the exchange rate and concentration of amide proton moiety. In this work, we sought to assess the reproducibility and longitudinal change of spinal cord APT CEST in patients with MS. Our results suggest that APT CEST in the spinal cord is capable of reproducibly identifying underlying changes in spinal cord tissue pathology.

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