%0 Journal Article %J J Alzheimers Dis %D 2016 %T Combination of Structural MRI and FDG-PET of the Brain Improves Diagnostic Accuracy in Newly Manifested Cognitive Impairment in Geriatric Inpatients. %A Ritter, Kerstin %A Lange, Catharina %A Weygandt, Martin %A Mäurer, Anja %A Roberts, Anna %A Estrella, Melanie %A Suppa, Per %A Spies, Lothar %A Prasad, Vikas %A Steffen, Ingo %A Apostolova, Ivayla %A Bittner, Daniel %A Gövercin, Mehmet %A Brenner, Winfried %A Mende, Christine %A Peters, Oliver %A Seybold, Joachim %A Fiebach, Jochen B %A Steinhagen-Thiessen, Elisabeth %A Hampel, Harald %A Haynes, John-Dylan %A Buchert, Ralph %X

BACKGROUND: The cause of cognitive impairment in acutely hospitalized geriatric patients is often unclear. The diagnostic process is challenging but important in order to treat potentially life-threatening etiologies or identify underlying neurodegenerative disease.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the add-on diagnostic value of structural and metabolic neuroimaging in newly manifested cognitive impairment in elderly geriatric inpatients.

METHODS: Eighty-one inpatients (55 females, 81.6±5.5 y) without history of cognitive complaints prior to hospitalization were recruited in 10 acute geriatrics clinics. Primary inclusion criterion was a clinical hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), cerebrovascular disease (CVD), or mixed AD+CVD etiology (MD), which remained uncertain after standard diagnostic workup. Additional procedures performed after enrollment included detailed neuropsychological testing and structural MRI and FDG-PET of the brain. An interdisciplinary expert team established the most probable etiologic diagnosis (non-neurodegenerative, AD, CVD, or MD) integrating all available data. Automatic multimodal classification based on Random Undersampling Boosting was used for rater-independent assessment of the complementary contribution of the additional diagnostic procedures to the etiologic diagnosis.

RESULTS: Automatic 4-class classification based on all diagnostic routine standard procedures combined reproduced the etiologic expert diagnosis in 31% of the patients (p = 0.100, chance level 25%). Highest accuracy by a single modality was achieved by MRI or FDG-PET (both 45%, p≤0.001). Integration of all modalities resulted in 76% accuracy (p≤0.001).

CONCLUSION: These results indicate substantial improvement of diagnostic accuracy in uncertain de novo cognitive impairment in acutely hospitalized geriatric patients with the integration of structural MRI and brain FDG-PET into the diagnostic process.

%B J Alzheimers Dis %V 54 %P 1319-1331 %8 2016 Oct 18 %G eng %N 4 %1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27567842?dopt=Abstract %R 10.3233/JAD-160380