Object:
To assess the significance of mI/Cr ratio obtained from MR spectroscopy in differentiating multiple sclerosis (MS) plaques from vascular associated white matter lesions (WML).
Patients and Methods:
This study included 23 patients with established diagnosis of relapsing remitting MS (15 females, 8 males, mean age 45±5.7 years) and 18 patients with ischemic WML (10 females, 8 male, mean age 59±5.9 years) who underwent MRI as diagnostic step in case of vascular insult like minor stroke and 12 normal control , all were examined with conventional MRI and single voxel MR spectroscopy. Metabolite ratios for Cho/Cr, Cho/NAA and MI/Cr were calculated automatically then compared between the three groups and compared between MS plaques and WML.
Results:
The mean ratio for mI/Cr were (1.57±0.37 , 0.90±0.13 and 0.65±0.05), Cho/Cr were (0.83±0.38, 0.79±0.18 and 1.04±0.07) and Cho/NAA were (0.74±0.33, 0.73±0.23 and 0.61±0.05) in MS plaques, WML and normal control WM (NCWM) respectively.
Ms plaques showed significant increase in mI/Cr ratio in comparison to WML (p value