Diagnosis of small hypointense foci on 3 T susceptibility weighted imaging in patients with Alzheimer ’s disease and mild cogni-tive impairment

HUANGQing-ling; LIUWen; XIAOChao-yong; XULi-guang; CHAIXue; CAOJi-xiang; HUJun

Abstract：Objective To compare the difference of brain small hypointense foci (SHF) between mild cognitive impair‐ment (MCl) patients and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients by applying SWI .Methods 36 MCI patients and 40 AD pa‐tients were collected from Nanjing Brain Hospital .SWI examination was performed and evaluated the MMSE scores .Two senior neuroradiologists assessed the number and location of SHF on 2 mm contiguous SWI .They reviewed divergent eval‐uations to reach a consensus .The location of SHF included lobar regions (frontal ,temporal ,parietal ,and occipitall lobe) , basal ganglia/thalamus ,and infratentorial regions (brain stem and cerebellum ) .We evaluated the cerebral significance of phase value difference ,ages ,sex ,education ,and MMSE between MCI and AD .The correlation of SHF number and MMSE score was analyzed by Bonferroni correlation .Results There were no differences in age ,sex and education be‐tweem the MCI and AD group .( P>0 .05) ,while there were statistically differences of SHF in lobar regions ,basal gan‐glia/thalamus ,and infratentorial regions(brain stem and cerebellum ) on SWI images ( P <0 .05) .The lobar region was the most frequent site of SHF in the two groups ,then in basal ganglia/thalamus ,and brain stem /cerebellum .The MMSE score of MCI was 22 ± 1 .2 ,18 ± 1 .5 for AD .Statistical significance was among the three regions .and scores for MCI and AD .Positive Bonferroni correlations were also measured between SHF numbers and MMSE scores ( r =‐0 .36 ,P <0.05) .Conclusion 3T SWl was a simple ,safe and non‐invasive method and had good repeatability .The SHF in MCI and AD patients could be distinguished by SWI .SWI may provide a new noninvasive dynamic monitoring method and valuable biological indicator for the early diagnosis of AD and MCI and the prevention of developing from MCI to AD .