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To evaluate whether MRI can detect whole-brain structural change in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), investigators conducted a multicenter, 1-year, longitudinal MRI study of 76 patients with FTLD spectrum disorders. The study design simulated a treatment trial in terms of recruitment, timing, image acquisition standardization, and analysis, setting the stage for a 1-year treatment trial. Patients had behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia, progressive nonfluent aphasia, semantic dementia, or progressive logopenic aphasia (PLA).
Annual atrophy rates were similar for all four FTLD syndromes, except for slightly higher rates in patients with PLA (mean annualized rate for all but PLA, –1.62%). In general, these rates were higher tha…