Reproducibility of hippocampal atrophy rates measured with manual, FreeSurfer, AdaBoost, FSL/FIRST and the MAPS-HBSI methods in Alzheimer's disease

• Published in: Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging Vol. 252; pp. 26 - 35
• Main Authors: Cover, Keith S., van Schijndel, Ronald A., Versteeg, Adriaan, Leung, Kelvin K., Mulder, Emma R., Jong, Remko A., Visser, Peter J., Redolfi, Alberto, Revillard, Jerome, Grenier, Baptiste, Manset, David, Damangir, Soheil, Bosco, Paolo, Vrenken, Hugo, van Dijk, Bob W., Frisoni, Giovanni B., Barkhof, Frederik
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 30.06.2016
• Subjects: Aged; Algorithms; Alzheimer disease; Alzheimer Disease - diagnostic imaging; Alzheimer Disease - pathology; Atrophy; Atrophy - diagnostic imaging; Atrophy - pathology; Automatic segmentation; Boundary shift integral; Female; Hippocampus; Hippocampus - diagnostic imaging; Hippocampus - pathology; Humans; Magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Manual segmentation; Mild cognitive impairment; Neuroimaging - methods; Psychiatry; Radiology; Reproducibility of Results; Atrophy; Manual segmentation; Automatic segmentation; Magnetic resonance imaging; Mild cognitive impairment; Alzheimer disease; Boundary shift integral; Hippocampus
• ISSN: 0925-4927; 1872-7506; 1872-7506
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2016.04.006

The purpose of this study is to assess the reproducibility of hippocampal atrophy rate measurements of commonly used fully-automated algorithms in Alzheimer disease (AD). The reproducibility of hippocampal atrophy rate for FSL/FIRST, AdaBoost, FreeSurfer, MAPS independently and MAPS combined with the boundary shift integral (MAPS-HBSI) were calculated. Back-to-back (BTB) 3D T1-weighted MPRAGE MRI from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI1) study at baseline and year one were used. Analysis on 3 groups of subjects was performed – 562 subjects at 1.5T, a 75 subject group that also had manual segmentation and 111 subjects at 3T. A simple and novel statistical test based on the binomial distribution was used that handled outlying data points robustly. Median hippocampal atrophy rates were −1.1%/year for healthy controls, −3.0%/year for mildly cognitively impaired and −5.1%/year for AD subjects. The best reproducibility was observed for MAPS-HBSI (1.3%), while the other methods tested had reproducibilities at least 50% higher at 1.5T and 3T which was statistically significant. For a clinical trial, MAPS-HBSI should require less than half the subjects of the other methods tested. All methods had good accuracy versus manual segmentation. The MAPS-HBSI method has substantially better reproducibility than the other methods considered. •Compared the reproducibility of methods for measuring hippocampal atrophy rates.•Compared FreeSurfer, FSL/FIRST, MAPS-HBSI, AdaBoost and manual.•Back-to-back MPRAGEs at baseline and year one for N=562 ADNI1 1.5T subjects.•Used a novel but simple statistical test that is robust to outlying data points.•MAPS-HBSI should require half the subjects in a clinical trial than others tested.