"The outcome is the system says, 'This has a 60 percent resemblance to a patient with Alzheimer's, 20 percent with frontotemporal dementia, and 10 percent to others,'" Klink says.

So far, studies are quite preliminary, but results look promising, according to Philips.


One retrospective study looked at PET scans of patients who had Alzheimer's and frontotemporal dementia, as well as healthy subjects, with diagnoses previously given by a medical expert. Philips says the software's own diagnosis matched the expert's opinion in around 98 percent of the cases. A second study involving 48 subjects, which also included scans from patients with Lewy-Body dementia, was a tad weaker, with the software agreeing with the experts around 80 percent of the time.

"The second study was a bit more challenging," Klink admits. But he notes that the study worked with PET alone, not PET combined with MR, which is what Philips ultimately hopes for the program.

"In the end, we want highest sensitivity and specificity," says Klink. "We don't know if you would reach that alone with PET, that's why we also want to incorporate the MR information."

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