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Atrophy of the ipsilateral mammillary body in unilateral hippocampal sclerosis shown by thin-slice-reconstructed volumetric analysis

  • Diagnostic Neuroradiology
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Abstract

Purpose

Conventional volumetric analysis could not detect ipsilateral atrophy of the mammillary body in patients with unilateral hippocampal sclerosis. By using thin-slice-reconstructed volumetric analysis, we investigated whether the mammillary body volume is smaller on the hippocampal sclerosis side than in healthy subjects or the non-hippocampal sclerosis side.

Methods

This retrospective study included 45 patients with unilateral hippocampal sclerosis and 30 healthy subjects. Three-dimensional T1WI of 1 mm thicknesses were oversampled to a thickness of 0.2 mm (thin-slice-reconstructed images), and the mammillary bodies were segmented manually to determine mammillary body volume on each side. Mammillary body volumes on the hippocampal sclerosis side were compared with those in healthy subjects or the non-hippocampal sclerosis side.

Results

In patients with right hippocampal sclerosis, right mammillary body volume was both significantly smaller than that in healthy subjects (30.3 ± 10.3 vs. 43.3 ± 8.07 mm3, P < 0.001) and significantly smaller than the left mammillary body volume in each patient (30.3 ± 10.3 vs. 41.4 ± 10.1 mm3, P < 0.001). Similarly, in patients with left hippocampal sclerosis, left mammillary body volume was both significantly smaller than that in healthy subjects (37.7 ± 11.2 vs. 47.0 ± 8.65 mm3, P < 0.001) and significantly smaller than right mammillary body volume in each patient (37.7 ± 11.2 vs. 42.5 ± 7.78 mm3, P = 0.044).

Conclusions

In this study, thin-slice-reconstructed volumetric analysis showed that, in patients with unilateral hippocampal sclerosis, mammillary body volume on the hippocampal sclerosis side is smaller than that in healthy subjects and the non-hippocampal sclerosis side.

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Abbreviations

3D:

three-dimensional

HS:

hippocampal sclerosis

HV:

hippocampal volume

ICC:

intraclass correlation coefficient

MBR:

mammillary body ratio

MBV:

mammillary body volume

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Correspondence to Shunji Mugikura.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of our institutional review board and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. For this type of study formal consent is not required.

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For this type of retrospective study formal consent is not required.

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Morishita, Y., Mugikura, S., Mori, N. et al. Atrophy of the ipsilateral mammillary body in unilateral hippocampal sclerosis shown by thin-slice-reconstructed volumetric analysis. Neuroradiology 61, 515–523 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-019-02158-4

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