BRAIN ATROPHY IN NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASES - QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE CT ANALYSIS

A quantitative and qualitative analysis was done of 187 CT examination s in 59 healthy subjects and 128 patients with various neurodegenerati ve diseases. The rates of agreement between quantitative measurements and the qualitative grading by two observers were 76.7% for the evalua tion of lateral ventricular size and 66.3% for the assessment of sulca l size. Increase in the width of the 3rd ventricle, in the bicaudate s pan, and in the area of the lateral ventricles reflected a pathologic enlargement of the ventricles. The profile of ventricular dilatation i n dementia patients was different from that of other patients with bra in atrophy. However, the quantitative measurement of brain atrophy by a computer-based method did not increase the differential diagnostic a ccuracy among dementia patients. The results stress the importance of the selection of valid measures in the evaluation of structural change s of the brain. We suggest the use of reference scans for improving th e reliability of the visual evaluation.