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Diagnosis of suspected Alzheimer’s disease is improved by automated analysis of regional cerebral blood flow

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European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, remains difficult. In order to assess whether fully automated stereotactic surface projection (3D-SSP) presentation contributes to the diagnosis of AD by single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), we investigated the diagnostic accuracy of transaxial display with and without 3D-SSP analysis as well as the correlation between cerebral perfusion in different cortical areas and the mini mental score (MMS).

Methods

Seventy-two patients referred because of cognitive impairment were included in the study. According to the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS) and the Alzheimer’s disease and Related Disorders Association (ADRDA) criteria, 27 patients were diagnosed as having probable AD while 45 were classified as non-AD patients. 3D-SSP was used to quantify the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) acquired from SPECT imaging.

Results

Compared with the transaxial section presentation alone, 3D-SSP presentation improved the area under the receiver operating curve (p<0.05) as well as intra-observer (k=0.73 vs 0.88) and inter-observer (k=0.50 vs 0.84) reproducibility. Upon normalisation of regional to thalamic activity, multiple regression analysis revealed a strong correlation between the MMS and rCBF in the right parietal cortex (p=0.002).

Conclusion

Addition of 3D-SSP to the transaxial section display of ECD-SPECT studies improves the reproducibility and the diagnostic performance in respect of AD in patients with cognitive impairment and provides a valid tool for assessment of the severity of cortical perfusion abnormalities in such patients.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Department of Nuclear Medicine, Mont-Godinne University Hospital.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Mont-Godinne University Hospital, UCL-Université Catholique de Louvain, Yvoir, Belgium

    Bich-Ngoc-Thanh Tang, Jean George & Thierry Vander Borght

  2. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Erasme Hospital, Free University of Brussels, Route de Lennik 808, 1070, Brussels, Belgium

    Bich-Ngoc-Thanh Tang

  3. Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

    Satoshi Minoshima

  4. Departments of PHS Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Mont-Godinne University Hospital, UCL-Université Catholique de Louvain, Yvoir, Belgium

    Annie Robert

  5. Department of Geriatrics, Mont-Godinne University Hospital, UCL-Université Catholique de Louvain, Yvoir, Belgium

    Christian Swine

  6. Department of Neurology, Mont-Godinne University Hospital, UCL-Université Catholique de Louvain, Yvoir, Belgium

    Patrice Laloux

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  1. Bich-Ngoc-Thanh Tang
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  2. Satoshi Minoshima
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Correspondence to Bich-Ngoc-Thanh Tang.

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Tang, BNT., Minoshima, S., George, J. et al. Diagnosis of suspected Alzheimer’s disease is improved by automated analysis of regional cerebral blood flow. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 31, 1487–1494 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-004-1597-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-004-1597-7

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