Volume estimation of brain ventricles using Cavalieri’s principle and Atlas-based methods in Alzheimer disease: Consistency between methods

•Alzheimer’s patients had significantly larger LVV when compared to control subjects.•There was an excellent agreement between Cavalieri’s principle and Atlas-based method.•LVV can be measured using Atlas-based method with 64% sensitivity and 92% specificity.•This method may be used instead of manual volumetry to estimate brain volumes.•The Atlas-based method provides rapid and accurate estimations in brain MR images. Automatic estimations of brain ventricles are needed to assess disease progression in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer Disease (AD). The objectives of this study are to evaluate the diagnostic performances of an automated volumetric assessment tool in estimating lateral ventricle volumes in AD and to compare this with Cavalieri’s principle, which is accepted as the gold standard method. This is across-sectional volumetric study including 25 Alzheimer patients and 25 healthy subjects undergoing magnetic resonance images (MRI) with a 3D turbo spin echo sequence at 1.5 Tesla. The Atlas-based method incorporated MRIStudio software to automatically measure he volumes of brain ventricles. To compare the corresponding measurements, we used manual point-counting and semi-automatic planimetry methods based on Cavalieri’s principle. Bland–Altman test results indicated an excellent agreement between Cavalieri’s principle and the Atlas-based method in all volumetric measurements (p