High proportion of dementia with Lewy bodies in the postmortems of amental hospital in Germany
L.M. Drach
Bok Engelsk 1997
| Utgitt | 1997
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| Omfang | Side 301- 306
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| Opplysninger | Objective. Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is under-recognized inGermany. No data on the number of patients suffering from thiscondition in Germany are available at present. We were interested inthe proportion of DLB in the postmortems of demented inpatients inthe care of a psychogeriatric service.Design. In a retrospective study we examined consecutive postmortemsof inpatients who died in one mental hospital.Setting. A suburban and rural old age psychiatry service in Germany.Patients. 103 consecutive postmortems had been performed from 9/1987to 6/1995. Fifty-nine (57.3%) of all cases warranted the clinicaldiagnosis of dementia (DSM-III-R).Measures. The causes of dementia were examined histologically. Lewybodies (LBs) were detected with ubiquitin immunohistochemistry.Results. DLB was the third most frequent cause of dementia (13.6% ofdemented), after dementia of Alzheimer's type (DAT) (35.6%) and mixedDAT and vascular dementia (15.3%), but ahead of 'pure' vasculardementia (MID). The DLB group showed a male preponderance comparedwith the DAT, MID and mixed group of our series. The DLB patientsdied younger than the DAT patients. The differences, however, werenot statistically significant. All DLB cases showed neurofibrillaryand amyloid pathology sufficient to warrant an additional diagnosisof DAT. Cases with 'pure' LB pathology had not been detected in ourseries.Conclusions. Our results indicate that by using appropriate methods,ie ubiquitin immunohistochemistry, a considerable number of DLB casescan be detected in postmortems of demented patients from Germanmental hospitals. ((C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)
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