UK Biobank’s 15-minute brain-imaging method allows doctors at 11 memory clinics to offer patients more tailored treatments.
Summary
A brain-scanning process, developed by UK Biobank to take minutes rather than hours, has become part of routine care for patients at 11 NHS memory clinics. The scan is helping doctors to better identify the type of dementia someone has and distinguish it from unrelated conditions. Ultimately, this means people get treatments and support that match their needs.
UK Biobank’s brain-imaging process is helping doctors at NHS clinics to make more accurate dementia diagnoses – and ultimately tailor care to people’s needs.
We’re enabling patients to have better quality assessments as part of their routine NHS care.
Professor Clare Mackay, University of Oxford, UK
“We’re enabling patients to have better quality assessments as part of their routine NHS care,” says neuroscientist Clare Mackay from the University of Oxford, UK, whose team introduced the UK Biobank imaging process at the Oxford Brain Health Clinic in 2022.
Built for speed
The UK Biobank process was developed to produce the highest quality images in the least time possible, to minimise the time participants had to spend in the scanner.
“In a typical research study, people would undergo an hour of scanning out of which you can get maybe three, four good pictures,” explains Mackay’s colleague Ludovica Griffanti. “UK Biobank squeezed everything in 30 minutes, but still with the same great quality [of longer scans].”
This made the method perfect for memory clinics, which specialise in diagnosing and treating dementia. Patients here might not be able to lay still in a scanner for a long time. The Oxford team cut down scanning time even further, to only 15 minutes, by focusing only on brain areas that might show signs of dementia.
Detailed diagnoses
There are now 11 memory clinics across the country that use UK Biobank’s brain-imaging protocol.
There are now 11 memory clinics across the country that use UK Biobank’s brain-imaging protocol.
The Oxford clinic also introduced a more methodical way for radiologists to report the brain scan’s findings, which “has helped clinicians enormously”, says Lola Martos, who leads the clinical team at the Oxford Brain Health Clinic. It has given clinicians to be more confidence in their diagnosis, and in the accuracy of that diagnosis, she adds.
An accurate diagnosis is important: for patients and their families to better understand their condition and plan for the future, and for doctors to offer the right treatments. Vascular dementia, for example, is often managed with blood-pressure- or cholesterol-lowering medications. For people with Alzheimer’s disease, different therapies are available that can temporarily relieve symptoms and improve memory.
A boost to research participation
After their medical scan, patients at the Oxford clinic have the option to stay in the scanner for another 15 minutes to record ‘research scans’. These aren’t relevant for clinical care but very useful for research, Griffanti explains.
It’s been a real revelation [to see] how we work together between research and clinical services.
Dr Lola Martos, Oxford Brain Health Clinic, UK
This integration removes some of the barriers to research participation, Mackay points out. “Typically, if a patient is interested in contributing to research, they have to get in a scanner twice, they have to drive to the hospital twice, they have to find somewhere to park twice,” she says.
About 85% of patients agree to spend the additional 15 minutes in the scanner. The national target is 10%, though most medical research studies only manage to recruit less than 2% of the people they ask.
“It’s been a real revelation [to see] how we work together between research and clinical services,” Martos says.
Related publication
- NeuroImage: Clinical, November 2022