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Parkinsonian Syndromes: Lewy Body Dementia (LBD)

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This is 74 year old man who s been carried for

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some time seven years with a diagnosis of classic

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PD or Parkinson's disease. However,

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his cinemat or DOPA response was variable to nil.

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Now, a key part of this patient's history was

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dementia at presentation on MRI.

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And his dementia had been present for at least 5 years.

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So, five out of the seven years.

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So the fact that dementia was a prominent

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presentation early on,

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might have been a tip off

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to the pathologic diagnosis in this case,

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which we do have.

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Let's look at the axial echoplanar image,

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an axial PD and an axial T2.

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What might strike you is the thickness

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of the substantia niagara,

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the preservation of pigment in the red nucleus,

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and the fact that you can see the compact zone

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separating the two.

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So they haven't completely bled together.

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This is apparent on the PD,

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the T2, less valuable because it's

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not as sensitive to iron.

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And I'm going to scroll up and down a little bit.

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As you can see, there's iron accumulation in the putamen,

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less so in the globus pallidus,

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maybe the GPE, the outer aspect of the globus

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has a little bit of brain iron in it.

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Let's go up and then let's go down a little bit,

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back to the level of the midbrain.

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We'll go a little bit below towards the midbrain

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pontine junction, just so you get a feel for it.

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And once again,

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in somebody with really severe end stage

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Parkinson's disease, quote unquote,

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which this patient was alleged to have,

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the preservation of the compactor

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stripe goes against classic PD.

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Then I'm going to pull down the sagittal,

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remembering that this patient has dementia,

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and I'm going to scroll from side to side.

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Let's go off to one of the temporal lobes.

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Actually,

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let me get something that's a little thicker here.

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Let's go off to one side and look at the

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massive atrophy of the temporal lobe.

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It's way disproportionate than you would expect

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for somebody who has seven years

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of Parkinson's disease.

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Let's go to the other side where the temporal lobe

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is also severely atrophic.

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So early dementia,

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disproportionate atrophy in the temporal,

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hippocampal and parahippocampal regions,

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and the preservation of the compacta zone

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raise the possibility of a very closely

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related Parkinsonian disorder,

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namely LBD or Lewy Body Disease or dementia,

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which includes dementia with Lewy bodies.

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Dementia with Lewy bodies is also

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seen in Parkinson's Disease,

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but the dementia is a late component or a

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later component of Parkinson's disease.

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This is one of the more common forms of dementia.

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It accounts for 15% of all cases at autopsy,

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the most common being, ALZ or Alzheimer's disease,

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but tied or maybe slightly more frequent is

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frontalobar dementia.

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So it goes ALZ, then DLB,

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and frontal lobar dementia,

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in the spectrum of dementia,

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the risk of progression to dementia and

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Parkinson's disease increases with age.

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So if you get Parkinson's disease at age 70,

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you're more like likely to have dementia

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in the earlier spectrum of the disease.

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Whereas if you get Parkinson's

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disease when you're 30 or 40,

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the dementia component doesn't appear until very,

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very late.

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The dementia component has been shown to affect

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70% of all PD patients over an eight year

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prospective longitudinal study,

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and it's six times more frequent than

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in healthy control subjects.

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So it is related to the disorder,

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not some overlap or additive disorder that causes

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the dementia in PD or classic Parkinson's disease.

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Now, DLB,

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Lewy Body Dementia or LBD

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and Parkinson's disease

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are differentiated from other dementia subtypes

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by the presence of Lewy body pathology.

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Both groups have alphas and

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nuclear fibrillary aggregates,

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which form neuronal inclusion bodies that are

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known as Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites.

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So lewy bodies are not unique to Lewy Body Dementia.

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Lewy bodies occur in PD as well.

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And that's a potential exam or board question for

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medical students and residents and fellows.

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Let's move on.

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This patient,

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a Parkinsonian like syndrome,

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Lewy Body Dementia,

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rather than classic Parkinson's disease,

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sadly confirmed at post.

Report

Description

Faculty

Stephen J Pomeranz, MD

Chief Medical Officer, ProScan Imaging. Founder, MRI Online

ProScan Imaging

Tags

Syndromes

Non-infectious Inflammatory

Neuroradiology

Metabolic

MRI

Idiopathic

Brain

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