AbstractBackground: Alcohol is socially and legally accepted substance of abuse ethanol intoxication may lead to loss of subcortical white matter, cerebral atrophy, Wernicke’ sencephalopathy, Marchiafava-Bignami disease etc. [1]
Thus the main purpose of the study is to diagnose the alcohol-induced brain changes in Alcohol dependence syndrome patients and thus help in the planning of early treatment of the diagnosed condition, thereby preventing the further neurological decline.
Aims
1.To describe the various magnetic resonance imaging findings in alcohol dependence syndrome patients.
2.To correlate the cortical changes to the number of years of drinking in alcohol dependence syndrome patients.
Materials and Methods: The Study group consisted of 55 patients, who fulfilled the alcohol dependence syndrome criteria according to the International Classification of Disease criteria (ICD-10). Alcohol use disorder identification test scale was applied and individual with alcohol dependence score of >15 (for men) were considered for study.
MRI brain protocol was used and MRI sequences were meticulously evaluated.
Global cortical atrophy scale was used to qualitatively assess the cortical atrophy on FLAIR images. Scoring is given to each lobe separately after assessing the sulci and gyri appearance in each lobe.
Results: Most common MRI brain finding was cerebral atrophy (40%) followed by cerebellar atrophy (21.8%), non specific T2 hyperintensities (14.5%) hepatic encephalopathy (5.4%), least common being central pontine myelinosis (1.8%) and marchiafava bignami disease (1.8%).
Most common lobe to show changes of atrophy was frontal lobe, followed by parietal, temporal and least occipital lobe.
Conclusions: MRI is the most sensitive imaging modality to identify various neuroimaging findings in alcohol dependence syndrome patients. Cortical atrophy findings were seen more in patients who were chronic drinkers with long duration history of alcohol intake alcohol intake of more than 20 years There was a significant association noted between duration of drinking and atrophic changes and the results were statistically significant (p< 0.001). In cortical atrophy the predominantly involved lobe was frontal lobe followed by parietal lobe.
