King’s College London -- Scientists at the National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at the King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) are the first to use an advanced computer program to accurately detect the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease from a routine clinical brain scan. The new scan can return 85 per cent accurate diagnostic results in under 24 hours. The ‘Automated MRI’ software automatically compares or benchmarks someone’s brain scan image against 1200 others, each showing varying stages of Alzheimer’s disease. This collection of images is thought to be the largest of its kind in the world.
Normally in routine clinical practice, brain scans are used to simply exclude diseases that can mimic Alzheimer’s disease, but here automated MRI software is being used for the first time in a NHS setting (Memory Clinics) to make an early and accurate diagnosis of the illness.
Early diagnosis
Early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is clinically difficult and patients with the early signs are frequently not treated until their symptoms become stronger. The new scan however can return 85 per cent accurate diagnostic results in under 24 hours.
An early diagnosis allows someone to plan their care before the condition worsens - helping to prevent institutionalisation, dramatically improving their quality of life. It is also a cost effective and efficient way to manage and organise treatment of the disease.
The scan has been developed by scientists at the IoP, together with colleagues from the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm.
The system is being ‘field tested’ over the next 12 months with patients attending SLaM memory services in Croydon, Lambeth and Southwark. The ‘field test’ will also provide a supply of research grade images, which has important implications for the development of the next generation of drugs for dementia and individualised treatments.
There are 750,000 people with dementia in the UK. The financial cost of dementia to the UK is over £20 billion a year. According to the Alzheimer’s Society, in just 15 years a million people will be living with dementia. This will soar to 1.7 million people by 2051.
King’sCollege London
King’s College London is one of the top 25 universities in the world (2010 QS international world rankings), The Sunday Times ‘University of the Year 2010/11' and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, it has nearly 23,500 students (of whom nearly 9,000 are graduate students) from 140 countries and approximately 6,000 employees.
King’s has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for British universities, 23 departments were ranked in the top quartile of British universities; over half of our academic staff work in departments that are in the top 10 per cent in the UK in their field and can thus be classed as world leading. The College is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of nearly £450 million.
King’s has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine, nursing and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe; no university has more Medical Research Council Centres.
King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’sCollege Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts are part of King’s Health Partners. King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering global collaboration between one of the world’s leading research-led universities and three of London’s most successful NHS Foundation Trusts, including leading teaching hospitals and comprehensive mental health services. For more information, visit:www.kingshealthpartners.org.
For further information please contact Erin Seymour, Press Officer at King’s College London, on 0207 848 5377 or email erin.seymour@kcl.ac.uk
