High Prevalence of Cerebral Microbleeds at 7Tesla MRI in Patients with Early Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

The prevalence of microbleeds on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) is lower than that of its presumed pathological correlate, cerebral amyloid angiopathy. We examined 18 patients with early AD or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 18 non-demented controls with ultra-high field strength 7Tesla MRI, to assess if the actual prevalence of microbleeds could be higher than is currently reported. One or more microbleeds were visualized in 78% of the MCI/AD patients and in 44% of the controls (p = 0.04). 7Tesla MRI shows that presence of microbleeds may be the rule, rather than exception in patients with MCI/AD.