Advanced Biomedical Research | 2014 1 Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease with atrophic changes in the temporal lobe. Enlargement of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) spaces, hippocampal sulcus (HS) enlargement, or an increase in the number or size of hippocampal cavities (HCs) could be associated with medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA). In this study, we assessed the relation of these CSF spaces with AD. Materials and Methods: A total 36 demented patients with diagnosis of Alzheimer (Mini‑Mental State Examination (MMSE) ≤25) and 36 non‑demented elderly individuals were referred for basic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) before initiating anti‑dementia therapy in the demented group. Two observers assessed the maximal HS width, as well as the occurrence, number, and size of HCs, and the visual rating score of MTA on magnified coronal high‑resolution T1‑weighted MR images. Results: The findings of our study indicate that the presence of hippocampal cavity (HC) (especially in the left side) and medial temporal lobe atrophy in demented patients was significantly higher in comparison with non‑demented elderly subjects (P ≤ 0.05). There was a significant relationship between MTA and HS width (P = 0.003, r = 0.00323), and it also had a trend to be significant with size of HCs (P = 0.08, r = 0.00314). A correlation between MTA and number of HCs was not detected. Conclusion: HS width is associated with MTA in patients with AD. It may serve as a measure to evaluate MTA for identifying individuals at particularly high risk for Alzheimer progression, and could be employed for selecting subjects for clinical trials or for treatment decisions. Key Words: Alzheimer’s disease, hippocampal cavities, hippocampal sulcus, magnetic resonance imaging Address for correspondence: Reza Basiratnia, MD. Department of Radiology, Al‑Zahra Hospital, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Sofe Ave, Isfahan, Iran, E‑mail: basiratnia@mui.ac.ir Received: 13.10.2012, Accepted: 21.10.2012 Abstract Prevalence of hippocampal morphologic variants between healthy elderly subjects and patients with Alzheimer’s disease Ali Hekmatnia, Reza Basiratnia, Razieh Koohi 1 , Majid Barekatein 2 , Hossein Ahrar, Farzaneh Hekmatnia 3 , Amirhossein Ghazavi 1 Department of Radiology, Image Processing and Signal Research Centre, 2 Department of psychiatry, Al‑Zahra Hospital, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, 1 Radiologist, Tehran, Iran. 3 Medical student, London University. INTRODUCTION Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that primarily affects the elderly. Selective memory impairment and dementia are the main clinical manifestations of AD. AD is characteristically a disease of the elderly. Prevalence of AD in patients younger than 60 is uncommon. Women are affected with AD slightly more common than men, with a relative risk of 1.5. [1,2] Access this article online Quick Response Code: Website: www.advbiores.net DOI: 10.4103/2277-9175.125817 Original Article How to cite this article: Hekmatnia A, Basiratnia R, Koohi R, Barekatein M, Ahrar H, Hekmatnia F, et al. Prevalence of hippocampal morphologic variants between healthy elderly subjects and patients with Alzheimer's disease. Adv Biomed Res 2014;3:59. Copyright: © 2014 Hekmatnia. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.