Brain atrophy in dementia judged by CT scan ranking.

In order to further investigate the relationships of brain atrophy, age, and dementia, computed tomographic (CT) scans on two groups of subjects aged 65-80 years were rank-ordered according to ventricular and sulcal size. Each group contained subjects with mild senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) and matched controls. In both experiments there was a strong correlation between these rank orders, ventricular size, and the clinical dementia rating. There was also a weaker but significant correlation between rank ordering and sulcal size. This suggests that brain atrophy in excess of that normal for age alone occurs in early SDAT.