Volumetric software helps researchers diagnose patients with memory loss

Researchers from the UCLA Medical Center found that new FDA-approved volumetric software can help clinicians determine when memory loss is caused by issues other than Alzheimer’s disease, according to research presented at the 2018 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) annual meeting in Los Angeles.

The authors tested the software, Neuroreader, by examining imaging data from 22 patients suffering from cognitive impairment who had been referred to their facility. Patients ranged from 53 to 92 years old. Patients with severe dementia were not included. Overall, the team found just five patients “showed baseline cross-sectional or longitudinal atrophy suggestive of Alzheimer’s disease.”

“Brain MRI with quantitative volumetric analysis can add value to the diagnostic evaluation of patients with cognitive impairment by identifying patterns of atrophy from causes other than Alzheimer's disease, such as vascular disease and psychiatric disorders,” lead author Somayeh Meysami, MD, and colleagues noted on their AAN poster. Bipolar disorder and vascular disease were identified as other causes of memory loss.

Meysami and colleagues also noted that patients not showing Alzheimer’s disease atrophy patterns “may still require longitudinal imaging to evaluate if such trends emerge over time.”