Visual assessment of posterior atrophy development of a MRI rating scale

Abstract

Objective: To develop a visual rating scale for posterior atrophy (PA) assessment and to analyse whether this scale aids in the discrimination between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other dementias. Methods: Magnetic resonance imaging of 118 memory clinic patients were analysed for PA (range 0-3), medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA) (range 0-4) and global cortical atrophy (range 0-3) by different raters. Weighted-kappas were calculated for inter- and intra-rater agreement. Relationships between PA and MTA with the MMSE and age were estimated with linear-regression analysis. Results: Intra-rater agreement ranged between 0.93 and 0.95 and inter-rater agreement between 0.65 and 0.84. Mean PA scores were higher in AD compared to controls (1.6∈±∈0.9 and 0.6∈±∈0.7, p∈