• Giovanni B Frisoni, Wouter J P Henneman, Michael W Weiner, Philip Scheltens, Bruno Vellas, Emma Reynish, Jaroslava Hudecova, Harald Hampel, Katharina Burger, Kaj Blennow, Gunhild Waldemar, Peter Johannsen, Lars-Olof Wahlund, Giancarlo Zito, Paolo M Rossini, Bengt Winblad, Frederik Barkhof, and Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.
• IRCCS Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy. gfrisoni@fatebenefratelli.it
• Alzheimers Dement. 2008 Jul 1; 4 (4): 255-64.

BackgroundIn North America, the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) has established a platform to track the brain changes of Alzheimer's disease. A pilot study has been carried out in Europe to test the feasibility of the adoption of the ADNI platform (pilot E-ADNI).MethodsSeven academic sites of the European Alzheimer's Disease Consortium (EADC) enrolled 19 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 22 with AD, and 18 older healthy persons by using the ADNI clinical and neuropsychological battery. ADNI compliant magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, cerebrospinal fluid, and blood samples were shipped to central repositories. Medial temporal atrophy (MTA) and white matter hyperintensities (WMH) were assessed by a single rater by using visual rating scales.ResultsRecruitment rate was 3.5 subjects per month per site. The cognitive, behavioral, and neuropsychological features of the European subjects were very similar to their U.S. counterparts. Three-dimensional T1-weighted MRI sequences were successfully performed on all subjects, and cerebrospinal fluid samples were obtained from 77%, 68%, and 83% of AD patients, MCI patients, and controls, respectively. Mean MTA score showed a significant increase from controls (left, right: 0.4, 0.3) to MCI patients (0.9, 0.8) to AD patients (2.3, 2.0), whereas mean WMH score did not differ among the three diagnostic groups (between 0.7 and 0.9). The distribution of both MRI markers was comparable to matched US-ADNI subjects.ConclusionsAcademic EADC centers can adopt the ADNI platform to enroll MCI and AD patients and older controls with global cognitive and structural imaging features remarkably similar to those of the US-ADNI.

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