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A pattern of reduced cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (rCMRglc) has been shown by positron emission tomography (PET) in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type. To verify if a similar rCMRglc pattern is present in subjects 'at risk' for Alzheimer's disease (AD), we used high-resolution PET to longitudinally study a subject with isolated memory impairment and a family history for autosomal dominant AD. Initial rCMRglc data did not reveal any consistent abnormality as compared to a group of sex- and age-matched healthy controls. However, 1 year later, a follow-up evaluation did reveal reduced parietal rCMRglc values coinciding with a worsening of cognitive impairment, which suggested that standard analyses of resting rCMRglc data may not be useful in the early diagnosis of AD. In contrast, when a previously determined discriminant function for distinguishing controls from AD patients was applied, the subject was correctly identified as an AD patient on both PET scans.
Pietrini et al. (Fri,) studied this question.