Scintigraphic appearance of Alzheimer diesase

Alzheimer disease (AD) is a devastating affliction of the elderly that has reached epidemic proportions. It produces regional abnormalities of brain blood flow and metabolism that may have diagnostic utility. In this paper the author determine the predictive value of Tc-99m HMPAO SPECT for detecting AD based on the prospective study of 132 consecutive patients coming to their nuclear medicine clinical unit for evaluation of memory loss or cognitive abnormalities. The final diagnosis was determined during clinical follow-up of 10.1 months ± 10.8. A final diagnosis was established in 113 patients, 52 of whom had AD. The probability of AD was 0.19 for normal perfusion 0.82 for bilateral posterotemporal and/or parietal defects, 0.77 for bilateral posterotemporal and/or parietal defects with additional defects, 0.57 for unilateral posterotemporal and/or parietal defects with or without additional defects, 0.25 for defects not involving the posterotemporal and/or parietal cortex, and 0.0 for small cortical defects. Of nine patients with bilateral posterotemporal and/or parietal defects with AD, six had Parkinson disease dementia