J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 1991; 3:51-57
Copyright © 1991 by American Neuropsychiatric Association
Cerebral magnetic resonance imaging compared in Alzheimer's and multi- infarct dementia
KM Reed, RL Rogers and JS Meyer
Cerebral Blood Flow Laboratories, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Houston, TX 77211, USA.
Cerebral magnetic resonance images (MRI) were compared between two groups,
each of 25 patients, one with senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type
(SDAT) and the other with multi-infarct dementia (MID). MRI proved to be
clinically useful for differentiating SDAT from MID, utilizing a
multivariate model of six MRI criteria as follows: ventricular-brain ratio,
presence of subcortical infarcts, bifrontal ventricular ratio, bicaudate
ventricular ratio, third ventricular ratio, and presence of diffuse
periventricular high-intensity white matter lucencies. Utilizing all six
MRI criteria, classification by discriminant function analysis provided 84%
correct diagnostic agreement with clinical classification of MID patients,
92% for SDAT patients, and 88% for the total cohort of demented patients.
