Quantitative evaluation of magnetic resonance imaging of deep white matterhyperintensity in geriatric patients by multifractal analysis

Fractal analysis has played an important role in various fields such as phy sics, biology and medicine. Recently, multifractal analysis based on genera lized concepts of fractals has been applied to biological tissues composed of complex structures. Deep white matter hyperintensity (DWMH) on brain mag netic resonance imaging (MRI) is more often observed in patients with geria tric depression than in healthy elderly subjects, and its clinical signific ance is receiving attention. We applied multifractal analysis to white matt er images on brain T2-weighted MRI in 62 patients with geriatric depression (50-75 years). The local fractal dimensions, alpha (max) and alpha (min), which serve as indices of complexity, and their difference, alpha (max) - a lpha (min), were closely correlated with the macroscopic grading according to Fazekas classification, suggesting that multifractal analysis is useful for quantitative evaluation of DWMH on MRI. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Irela nd Ltd. All rights reserved.