PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - J C van Swieten AU - A Hijdra AU - P J Koudstaal AU - J van Gijn TI - Grading white matter lesions on CT and MRI: a simple scale. AID - 10.1136/jnnp.53.12.1080 DP - 1990 Dec 01 TA - Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry PG - 1080--1083 VI - 53 IP - 12 4099 - http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/53/12/1080.short 4100 - http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/53/12/1080.full SO - J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry1990 Dec 01; 53 AB - We developed and tested a simple three-point scale for grading white matter lesions in anterior and posterior regions of the brain. Twenty four CT scans and 24 MRI scans were separately judged by 11 and five observers, respectively, on the presence and severity of white matter lesions. The observers were radiologists and neurologists. For CT scans, these periventricular changes were graded according to their extent as absent, or partly involving the white matter, or extending up to the subcortical region. The MRI lesions were graded as no lesion or only a single one, multiple focal lesions, and multiple confluent lesions. The pairwise agreements of all possible combinations of observers for each scan were corrected for chance (kappa statistics; maximal agreement 1.0). The weighted kappa value, for anterior and posterior regions combined, was 0.63 for CT scans, and 0.78 for MRI scans. This three-point scale for two separate regions seems suitable as a basis for cross-sectional or longitudinal studies of large series of patients.