Study on cerebral blood flow of patients with dementia of Alzheimer type

Objective To evaluate the value of cerebral blood flow(CBF) imaging detected by 99Tcm-ECD SPECT in patients with dementia of Alzheimer type(DAT).Methods Fourteen patients with possible DAT(group A),21 patients with probable DAT(group B) and 11 healthy persons(control group) were included in our study.DAT patients were diagnosed by NINCDS-ADRDA criteria of DAT.All subjects underwent 99mTc-ECD SPECT scanning.The images of each group were analyzed to quantify mean cerebral blood flow(mCBF) and regional cerebral blood flow(rCBF).Results The mCBF values of group B were significantly lower than those of control group(P0.01).The rCBF results showed that the ischemic areas of group A were found in both sides of occipital lobe and hippocampal gyrus,half side of temporal lobe.While both sides of frontal lobe,temporal lobe,parietal lobe and occipital lobe had a low rCBF in group B.Conclusions The 99Tcm-ECD SPECT CBF imaging is a non-invasive,simple and reliable method for the diagnosis of DAT.