Mayo Clinic researchers have developed an algorithm that extracts information on brain deterioration from three-dimensional MRI scans and assigns a severity score by comparing the scan to a large library of scans from patients with Alzheimer’s disease and patients who are cognitively normal.
The score – known as the Structural Abnormality iNDex or STAND score – captures Alzheimer’s disease stage in living people. Mayo Clinic researchers verified the accuracy of STAND scores by comparing 101 patients’ STAND scores with the traditional Braak staging done after death. Additionally, the STAND scores distinguished Alzheimer’s MRI scans from normal scans with 90 percent accuracy.
“We see a great potential for STAND scores,” says Prashanthi Vemuri, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic research fellow and lead author on this study. “It could be used for early identification of Alzheimer’s disease, for tracking the progression and assessing the severity of Alzheimer’s disease in patients, and in the future, it could potentially help test the efficacy of drugs used to treat Alzheimer’s disease.”
Dr. Vemuri presented this study at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease on July 27, 2008.
Dr. Vemuri provides an overview of the study.
With all due respect to Dr. Vemuri, I do not understand why they are doing this. You would have to do an MRI on each patient and that is a lot of radiation. Why can’t they use the 7 stages of Alzheimer’s that is published by the Alzheimer’s Research Foundation. I can take you into any nursing home, show the 7 stage document to any nurse manager worth her (or his) salt and that person quickly determine what stage any of that managers patients are in. Unless I am missing something, it is a huge waste of money and talent. But then, what do I know, I am only a mechanical engineer who has spent a lot of time doing my own research on Alzheimer’s in an effort to save the life of my wife of 55 years.
If you want me to, I can send you or the doctor the document.
Sincerely, Jerry Gerrity
Thanks for your comment. While a CT scan does involve radiation, an MRI doesn’t. It only uses magnetic fields, so there is no radiation risk.
Very exciting to be able to positively diagnose AD before death & also in testing the effectiveness of new drugs in the search for treatment or a cure!