Diagnosis of dementias by high-field 1H MRS of cerebrospinal fluid

• Published in: Journal of neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry Vol. 86; no. 12; pp. 1286 - 1290
• Main Authors: Laakso, M P, Jukarainen, N M, Vepsäläinen, J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BMJ Publishing Group LTD 01-12-2015
• Subjects: Age Factors; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Alzheimer Disease - cerebrospinal fluid; Cognition Disorders - psychology; Dementia - cerebrospinal fluid; Dementia - psychology; Dementia, Vascular - cerebrospinal fluid; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Frontotemporal Dementia - cerebrospinal fluid; Humans; Lewy Body Disease - cerebrospinal fluid; Male; Memory Disorders - psychology; Metabolites; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests; Pathology; Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; Reproducibility of Results; Sex Factors; Spectrum analysis; Studies
• ISSN: 0022-3050; 1468-330X
• DOI: 10.1136/jnnp-2015-311171

ObjectiveTo test whether the information obtained from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and analysed with high-field proton (1H) MR spectroscopy (MRS) would help the diagnosis of most common forms of dementia.SettingA total of 31 metabolites from CSF from 222 controls and patients suffering from various dementias (Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular dementia, Lewy body disease (LBD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD)) were quantified using 1H MRS.Main outcome measureClinical diagnosis.ResultsAD was classified with an accuracy of 85.5%. For a group of very early stage patients with AD, the result was significantly higher, 92.3%. Vascular dementia, LBD and FTD were all diagnosed with 100% accuracy in controls and from AD with an accuracy ranging between 85.5% and 93.4%.ConclusionsThe results indicate that the composition of CSF contains enough information of the neurological state of a given patient with a given dementia to be diagnosed with extremely high accuracy. This approach might provide potentially a very powerful diagnostic tool to help the diagnostic process of dementias.