Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Superiority of 3-dimensional stereotactic surface projection analysis over visual inspection in discrimination of patients with very early Alzheimer's disease from controls using brain perfusion SPECT.
In Alzheimer's disease (AD), regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the posterior cingulate gyri and precunei has been reported to decrease even at a very early stage. It may be helpful to use statistical image analysis to distinguish slight decreases in rCBF in this area. We compared a 3-dimensional stereotactic surface projection (3D-SSP) technique with visual inspection in the discrimination of patients with very early AD from age-matched controls using brain perfusion SPECT. ⋯ The ability of 3D-SSP to discriminate patients with very early AD from control subjects is superior to that of visual inspection. It is clinically useful and reliable to adopt the use of 3D-SSP as an adjunct to visual interpretation.