Alzheimer's Disease Diagnostic Performance of a Multi-Atlas Hippocampal Segmentation Method using the Harmonized Hippocampal Protocol

Cecilie Benedicte Anker, Lauge Sørensen, Akshay Pai, Mark Lyksborg, Martin Lillholm, Mads Nielsen, Knut Conradsen, Rasmus Larsen

Research output: Contribution to conferenceConference abstract for conferenceResearchpeer-review

Abstract

PURPOSE
Hippocampal volumetry is the most widely used structural MRI biomarker of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and state-of-the-art, automatic hippocampal segmentation can be obtained using longitudinal FreeSurfer. In this study, we compare the diagnostic AD performance of a single time point, multi-atlas method using the Harmonized Hippocampal Protocol (HHP) to FreeSurfer (FS).

METHOD AND MATERIALS
Baseline and month 12 MRI scans from the “complete annual year 2 visits” 1.5-T standardized ADNI dataset were used [169 normal controls (NC), 234 mild cognitive impaired (MCI), 101 AD]. A multi-atlas, affine registration, patch-based segmentation method (MRP) using 40 HHP segmentations in the atlas (12 NC, 11 MCI, 17 AD) was applied to segment the hippocampi. Static- and longitudinal FS (v5.1.0, default parameters) were also applied to segment the hippocampi. Atrophy rate calculated as percent volume change from baseline to month 12 was estimated for the three methods, and diagnostic performance was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of pairwise diagnostic group comparisons.

RESULTS
Mean (SD) atrophy rates were as follows (MRP / static FS / longitudinal FS): NC -0.86 (2.46) / -1.39 (5.41) / -1.63 (2.54), MCI -2.38 (3.28) / -3.69 (5.48) / -3.25 (3.53), AD -4.23 (3.07) / -4.29 (5.32) / -4.83 (3.74). Diagnostic performances were as follows (AUC; MRP / static FS / longitudinal FS): NC vs. MCI 0.65 / 0.67 / 0.64, NC vs. AD 0.80 / 0.69 / 0.76, MCI vs. AD 0.66 / 0.53 / 0.62. The MRP AUC was significantly larger (DeLong) than the static FS AUC for NC vs. AD and MCI vs. AD. In the remaining pairwise group comparisons, MRP AUCs did not differ significantly from FS AUCs.

CONCLUSION
The MRP method discriminated AD from either NC or MCI significantly better than static FS, and it was as good as longitudinal FS, which exploits information from both time points simultaneously. Moreover, the standard deviation of the atrophy rate was comparable to that of longitudinal FS, emphasizing longitudinal robustness of segmentations of the proposed method. The combination of MRP and HHP is a robust and fast alternative to FreeSurfer, especially in a setting with many time points.
Original languageEnglish
Publication date2014
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Event100th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA 2014) - Chicago, United States
Duration: 30 Nov 20145 Dec 2014
Conference number: 100
http://rsna2014.rsna.org/

Conference

Conference100th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA 2014)
Number100
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityChicago
Period30/11/201405/12/2014
Internet address

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