Alzheimer's can be detected early via brain scanner – Health

"The diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease at an early stage is not obvious," says Sebastiaan Engelborghs, professor of neuroscience at the University of Antwerp and neurologist at the Antwerp hospital network (Ziekenhuisnetwerk Antwerpen – ZNA), in the columns of the two newspapers. "However, it is important to quickly make the correct diagnosis and to start the appropriate treatment."

Sebastiaan Engelborghs recently published a study, in collaboration with colleagues from the Belgian Dementia Council. They badyzed the reliability of automatic cerebral MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) badysis to detect early changes in the brain. The method seems to be so precise that doctors can use it in practice to support the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. This is particularly the case in university hospitals in Brussels and Antwerp UZ Brussel and UZ Antwerpen, which have appropriate software.

"Alzheimer's usually affects specific parts of the brain," says Professor Engelborghs. "It's mainly the volumes of the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus, which are smaller than in healthy people." Comparing these parts of a patient's brain to normal data for his age, we have a piece additional puzzle to make a correct diagnosis. "

Until now, physicians have been diagnosed early, primarily by examining cerebrospinal fluid for typical proteins of the disease.

] With this new method, no additional scan should be performed because a cerebral MRI is anyway carried out in case of memory problems to exclude other problems such as cerebral hemorrhage or tumor. Existing images of the brain are then transmitted (after anonymisation) to the louvanist society "icometrix", a spin-off of the universities of Antwerp and Louvain (KU Leuven).

"The doctor receives a report half an hour an hour later, "says company director Wim Van Hecke in the newspapers. "We do not send a diagnosis but, in the vast majority of cases, it is obvious to the doctor, based on our badysis, whether the patient is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. still not clear enough, additional tests can be done. "