Automated brain morphometry for dementia diagnosis (BrainMeasure)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Automated brain morphometry for dementia diagnosis (BrainMeasure)
IRAS ID
132681
Contact name
Sergi Costafreda Gonzalez
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Research summary
Early dementia diagnosis improves patient and carer experience, links them to appropriate care and support and
enables timely symptomatic treatment. NICE guidelines recommend brain Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to
assist with the diagnosis in suspected dementia. Recently, computerised analysis of MRI scans, also known as
automated brain morphometry, has shown potential to detect the brain changes characteristic of early dementia, and
may therefore be a useful addition to the standard reporting performed by a neuroradiologist. The present pilot study
will assess whether adding brain morphometric analysis to the usual diagnostic pathway improve diagnosis in clinical
practice as an addition to the existing diagnostic pathway in a memory clinic setting.
Newly referred patients with suspicion of dementia will be enrolled into the study. Participants will be randomized into
two groups: 50% will form the control group, and have their diagnosis performed in the normal way, with traditional
radiology reports available from the MRI investigation. For the remaining half of patients, the referring clinician will
receive, in addition to the traditional report, a brain morphometry assessment of dementia markers to assist with
clinical decision making.
The study will ascertain whether there are differences between the two arms in clinical diagnostic confidence (the
confidence of the referring clinician in the diagnosis postMRI,
as measured by a questionnaire), patient satisfaction
with the diagnostic process, as well as time to diagnosis and several measures of patient outcomes (cognitive
performance and neuropsychiatric symptoms) and use of clinical resources (additional facetoface
visits and
diagnostic testing, prescription of antidementia
drugs and other medication) over a period of 1 year after the initial
assessment. As well, the accuracy of the initial diagnosis will be assessed by comparing the number of patients who
have their initial diagnosis changed over this 1 year period in both arms.REC name
London - City & East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/0668
Date of REC Opinion
16 Sep 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion