Comparison of Quantitative Hippocampal Volumes and Structured Scoring Scales in Predicting Alzheimer Disease Diagnosis

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:

Brain imaging plays an important role in investigating patients with cognitive decline and ruling out secondary causes of dementia. This study compares the diagnostic value of quantitative hippocampal volumes derived from automated volumetric software and structured scoring scales in differentiating Alzheimer disease, mild cognitive impairment, and subjective cognitive decline.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Retrospectively, we reviewed images and medical records of adult patients who underwent MR imaging with a dementia protocol (2018–2021). Patients with postscanning diagnoses of Alzheimer disease, mild cognitive impairment, and subjective cognitive decline based on the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th revision, were included. Diagnostic performances of automated normalized total hippocampal volume and structured manually assigned medial temporal atrophy and entorhinal cortical atrophy scores were assessed using multivariate logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic curve analysis.

RESULTS:

We evaluated 328 patients (Alzheimer disease, n = 118; mild cognitive impairment, n = 172; subjective cognitive decline, n = 38). Patients with Alzheimer disease had lower normalized total hippocampal volume (median, 0.35%), higher medial temporal atrophy (median, 3), and higher entorhinal cortical atrophy (median, 2) scores than those with subjective cognitive decline (P < .001) and mild cognitive impairment (P < .001). For discriminating Alzheimer disease from subjective cognitive decline, an entorhinal cortical atrophy cutoff value of 2 had a higher specificity (87%) compared with normalized total hippocampal volume (74%) and medial temporal atrophy (66%), but a lower sensitivity (69%) than normalized total hippocampal volume (84%) and medial temporal atrophy (84%). In discriminating Alzheimer disease from mild cognitive impairment, an entorhinal cortical atrophy cutoff value of 3 had a specificity (66%), similar to that of normalized total hippocampal volume (67%) but higher than medial temporal atrophy (54%), and its sensitivity (69%) was also similar to that of normalized total hippocampal volume (71%) but lower than that of medial temporal atrophy (84%).

CONCLUSIONS:

Entorhinal cortical atrophy and medial temporal atrophy may be useful adjuncts in discriminating Alzheimer disease from subjective cognitive decline, with reduced cost and implementation challenges compared with automated volumetric software.