Normative brain volume reports may improve differential diagnosis of dementing neurodegenerative diseases in clinical practice

• Published in: European radiology 2020-05, Vol.30 (5), p.2821-2829
• Main Authors: Hedderich, Dennis M., Dieckmeyer, Michael, Andrisan, Tiberiu, Ortner, Marion, Grundl, Lioba, Schön, Simon, Suppa, Per, Finck, Tom, Kreiser, Kornelia, Zimmer, Claus, Yakushev, Igor, Grimmer, Timo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aged; Algorithms; Alzheimer's disease; Atrophy; Biomarkers; Brain; Brain - pathology; Cerebral cortex; Cerebrospinal fluid; Clinical decision making; Cognitive ability; Decision making; Dementia; Dementia disorders; Diagnosis; Diagnosis, Differential; Diagnostic Radiology; Diagnostic systems; Differential diagnosis; Female; Frontotemporal dementia; Humans; Imaging; Internal Medicine; Interventional Radiology; Magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Medical diagnosis; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Middle Aged; Neuro; Neurodegenerative diseases; Neurodegenerative Diseases - diagnosis; Neuroimaging; Neuroradiology; Positron emission; Positron emission tomography; Positron-Emission Tomography - methods; Radiology; Representations; Reproducibility of Results; Semantic dementia; Tomography; Ultrasound
• ISSN: 0938-7994; 1432-1084
• DOI: 10.1007/s00330-019-06602-0

Objectives Normative brain volume reports (NBVRs) are becoming more and more available for the workup of dementia patients in clinical routine. However, it is yet unknown how this information can be used in the radiological decision-making process. The present study investigates the diagnostic value of NBVRs for detection and differential diagnosis of distinct regional brain atrophy in several dementing neurodegenerative disorders. Methods NBVRs were obtained for 81 consecutive patients with distinct dementing neurodegenerative diseases and 13 healthy controls (HC). Forty Alzheimer’s disease (AD; 18 with dementia, 22 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 11 posterior cortical atrophy (PCA)), 20 frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and ten semantic dementia (SD) cases were analyzed, and reports were tested qualitatively for the representation of atrophy patterns. Gold standard diagnoses were based on the patients’ clinical course, FDG-PET imaging, and/or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers following established diagnostic criteria. Diagnostic accuracy of pattern representations was calculated. Results NBVRs improved the correct identification of patients vs. healthy controls based on structural MRI for rater 1 ( p