Cerebral small-vessel disease and progression of brain atrophy

Abstract

To investigate whether severity and progression of periventricular and deep white matter lesions (WML) and lacunar infarcts were associated with progression of brain atrophy. Within the SMART-MR study, a prospective cohort on MRI changes in patients with symptomatic atherosclerotic disease, 565 patients (57 ± 9 years) without large infarcts had vascular screening and 1.5 T MRI at baseline and after a mean follow-up of 3.9 years. With automated brain segmentation, total brain, cortical gray matter, ventricular, and WML volumes were estimated and expressed relative to intracranial volume (%). Lacunar infarcts were rated manually. Using linear regression analyses adjusted for demographics and vascular risk factors, periventricular WML volume at baseline was associated with greater decrease in cortical gray matter volume (B = -1.73%, 95% confidence interval [CI] -3.15% to -0.30%, per 1% WML volume increase) and greater increase in ventricular volume (B = 0.12%, 95% CI 0.04% to 0.20%). Progression of periventricular WML volume corresponded with a greater decrease in cortical gray matter volume (B = -0.45%, 95% CI -0.9% to 0%) and greater increase in ventricular volume (B = 0.15%, 95% CI 0.1% to 0.2%). Presence of lacunar infarcts was associated with greater decline in total brain volume (B = -0.25%, 95% CI -0.49% to -0.01%) and progression of lacunar infarcts with a greater decrease of total brain (B = -0.30%, 95% CI -0.59% to 0.01%) and cortical gray matter volume (B = -0.81%, 95% CI -1.43% to -0.20%). In patients with symptomatic atherosclerotic disease, presence and progression of periventricular WML and lacunar infarcts is associated with greater progression of brain atrophy independent of vascular risk factors.