Department of Neuroradiology, Hospital Quirón, Zaragoza, Spain.
J Alzheimers Dis. 2012;31 Suppl 3:S5-18. doi: 10.3233/JAD-2011-111292.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in elderly people in western countries. However important goals are unmet in the issue of early diagnosis and the development of new drugs for treatment. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and volumetry of the medial temporal lobe structures are useful tools for diagnosis. Positron emission tomography is one of the most sensitive tests for making an early diagnosis of AD but the cost and limited availability are important caveats for its utilization. The importance of magnetic resonance techniques has increased gradually to the extent that most clinical works based on AD use these techniques as the main aid to diagnosis. However, the accuracy of structural MRI as biomarker of early AD generally reaches an accuracy of 80%, so additional biomarkers should be used to improve predictions. Other structural MRI (diffusion weighted, diffusion-tensor MRI) and functional MRI have also added interesting contribution to the understanding of the pathophysiology of AD. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy has proven useful to monitor progression and response to treatment in AD, as well as a biomarker of early AD in mild cognitive impairment.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）是西方国家老年人中最常见的痴呆症病因。然而，在早期诊断和开发新的治疗药物方面，仍有一些重要的目标尚未实现。磁共振成像（MRI）和内侧颞叶结构的容积测量是诊断的有用工具。正电子发射断层扫描（PET）是早期诊断 AD 的最敏感检查之一，但成本和有限的可用性是其应用的重要注意事项。磁共振技术的重要性逐渐增加，以至于大多数基于 AD 的临床研究都将这些技术作为主要的诊断辅助手段。然而，结构 MRI 作为早期 AD 的生物标志物的准确性通常达到 80%左右，因此应使用其他生物标志物来提高预测准确性。其他结构 MRI（弥散加权、弥散张量 MRI）和功能 MRI 也为 AD 的病理生理学理解提供了有趣的贡献。磁共振波谱已被证明可用于监测 AD 的进展和治疗反应，以及轻度认知障碍中早期 AD 的生物标志物。
