Rapidly progressing atrophy of medial temporal lobe in Alzheimer's disease.

The symptoms of Alzheimer's disease are associated with pathological change and loss of neurons in the medial temporal lobe. By yearly temporal-lobe-oriented computed tomograms the average rate of atrophy of the medial temporal lobe was 15.1% per year (95% CI 10.0, 20.2) in 20 patients with histopathologically, confirmed Alzheimer's disease and 1.5% (0.2, 2.8) in 47 healthy ageing controls. Such excessive atrophy presumably reflects the vulnerability of the medial temporal lobe to a catastrophic event, probably a pathological cascade process. Thus, Alzheimer's disease may not be due simply to an acceleration of normal ageing but, rather, is the consequence of a true disease process.