Longitudinal patterns of regional change on volumetric MRI in frontotemporal lobar degeneration

The aim of this study was to assess the longitudinal patterns of regional change in the different syndromic variants of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Ten patients with semantic dementia, 7 with progressive nonfluent aphasia and 29 with frontotemporal dementia had two serial volumetric MR scans. Fluid registration was used to match serial scans from each individual. Voxel-level analysis of change across subject groups was performed using statistical parametric mapping. The analysis showed patterns of increased rates of volume loss (atrophy) in frontal, temporal and parietal regions in the whole FTLD group compared with controls. The different FTLD syndromes displayed different patterns of change. This technique gives an insight into disease evolution over time in these disorders and may be useful as a method of tracking change in clinical trials.