Computerized Tomographic Scanning Not Very Helpful in Dementia — Nor in Craniopharyngioma

To the Editor: We^1,2 and others were initially very enthused about the use of computerized tomographic scanning in dementia. Besides the obvious benefit of identifying unsuspected brain tumors, abscesses and subdural hematomas, it was believed that the amount of ventricular enlargement and cortical sulcus atrophy would help demonstrate the severity of the dementia and possibly the ultimate prognosis. This hope has turned out to be only partially realized. We have recently noted that though the quantitative amount of cerebral atrophy does correlate with the amount of cognitive dysfunction in dementia, the correlation is relatively weak.^3,4 In fact, the amount of.