OBJECTIVE:

The authors correlated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) lesion severity and mortality among depressed elderly patients.

METHOD:

They examined the association of mortality and deep white-matter hyperintensity (DWMH), periventricular hyperintensity (PVH), and subcortical gray-matter hyperintensity (SGH) ratings in 259 subjects.

RESULTS:

DWMH and PVH were significantly associated with mortality initially, and, in final modeling, DWMH remained significant.

CONCLUSION:

These findings suggest that there is a relationship between cerebrovascular disease severity and mortality among depressed patients. More studies, with larger sample sizes, comparing depressed patients and control subjects are needed to further elucidate this relationship.