Mingqing Wei1†, Jing Shi1†, Jingnian Ni1, Xuekai Zhang1, Ting Li1, Zilong Chen1, Mengling Zhou1, Liping Zhang2,Zhongjian Tan2, Yongyan Wang3 and Jinzhou Tian1*

Abstract

Background: Visual rating scales are still the most popular tools in assessing atrophy degrees of whole brain and lobes. However, the false negative rate of the previous cutoff score of visual rating scales was relatively high for detecting dementia of Alzheimer’s type (DAT). This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of new cutoffs of visual rating scales on magnetic resonance imaging for discriminating DAT in a Chinese population.

Methods: Out of 585 enrolled subjects, 296 participants were included and diagnosed as normal cognition (NC) (n = 87), 138 diagnosed as amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), and 71 as dementia of Alzheimer’s type (DAT). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were used to calculate the diagnostic value of visual rating sales (including medial temporal atrophy (MTA), posterior atrophy rating scale (PA),global cortical atrophy scale (GCA) and medial temporal-lobe atrophy index (MTAi))for detecting NC from DAT .

Results: Scores of MTA correlated to age and Mini-mental state examination score. When used to detect DAT from NC, the MTA showed highest diagnostic value than other scales, and when the cutoff score of 1.5 of MTA scale, it obtained an optimal sensitivity (84.5%) and specificity (79.1%) respectively, with a 15.5% of false negative rate. Cutoff scores and diagnostic values were calculated stratified by age. For the age ranges 50–64, 65–74, 75–84 years, the following cut-offs of MTA should be used, ≥1.0(sensitivity and specificity were 92.3 and 68.4%), ≥1.5(sensitivity and specificity were 90.4 and 85.2%), ≥ 2.0(sensitivity and specificity were 70.8 and 82.3%) respectively. All of the scales showed relatively lower diagnostic values for discriminating aMCI from NC.

Conclusions: The new age-based MTA cutoff showed better diagnostic accuracy for detecting DAT than previous standard, the list of practical cut-offs proposed here might be useful in clinical practice.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, Medial temporal atrophy scale, Posterior atrophy rating scale, Global cortical atrophy scale, Medial temporal-lobe atrophy index