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. 2018 May 8;4(3):149-156.
doi: 10.1192/bjo.2018.16. eCollection 2018.

A population study of Norwegian psychiatric patients referred for clinical brain scanning

Mona K Beyer  1 , Turi O Dalaker  2 , Ole J Greve  2 , Siv E Pignatiello  3 , Ingrid Agartz  4
Affiliations

A population study of Norwegian psychiatric patients referred for clinical brain scanning

Mona K Beyer et al. BJPsych Open. .

Abstract

Background: Patients with psychiatric conditions are often referred for a brain scan during the course of their diagnostic workup.

Aims: The aim of our study is to determine frequency and type of organic brain pathology, the relationship to age, gender and psychiatric diagnosis.

Method: We investigated magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography brain scans from consecutively referred patients over a 10-year period (January 2002-December 2011). The reasons for referral, estimated psychiatric diagnosis, and the pathology discovered for each patient were registered.

Results: A total of 34% of patients demonstrated organic brain pathology, of which 32.8% were considered clinically relevant. This represents a higher frequency of relevant pathology than reported in healthy subjects. Age (P < 0.001) and diagnosis (P = 0.016) were the most important determinants for frequency of pathological findings.

Conclusions: Brain imaging in clinical psychiatry resulted in approximately 30% positive findings mainly associated with increasing pathologies with age, but also with diagnosis.

Declaration of interest: Both T.O.D. and M.K.B. have received honorary from Novartis for scientific lectures about multiple sclerosis. M.K.B. also received honoraria from Biogen for scientific lectures. The other authors have no conflicts of interest.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The frequency of pathology at different ages in the population, showing the frequency of positive scans according to age. This figure includes only patients sent for routine referrals or to exclude cerebral tumour (N = 2690). We found that the frequency of pathology steeply increases by 65 years of age.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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