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Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) in 74 yo patient

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This next patient, case number eight,

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is a 71-year-old woman with personality

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changes and memory loss.

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And what we see here is the patient had

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an initial amyloid PET study in 2017.

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The CT portion of this amyloid study showed

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moderate cerebral atrophy with a

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right temporal predilection.

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This is what the CT looks like here.

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And this is the amyloid study.

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So this amyloid study was actually negative.

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You see a tree and branch type pattern

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and so that's a negative amyloid.

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The patient then went on in 2018 to have an FDG

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brain PET CT and look at the dramatic difference

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in the amount of atrophy here.

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Just one year later,

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we now have moderately severe to severe

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atrophy in the right temporal lobe,

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moderate atrophy in the left temporal lobe.

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Again, here's in comparison to the prior,

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we have moderate atrophy also in

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the bilateral frontal lobes,

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and this has significantly progressed since

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the prior as well. So, for example,

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take a look at here at the size of the superior

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frontal sulcus compared to this prior

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exam just one year earlier.

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There also is some atrophy in

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the parietal lobes as well.

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But the frontal lobes and the temporal

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lobes really stand out.

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This is the FDG brain PET

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CT portion of this exam.

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And this demonstrates statistically significant

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hypometabolism in the bilateral frontal lobes as

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well as within the bilateral temporal lobes.

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Look how prominent this is in the

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bilateral temporal lobes. So,

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case number eight was again a 74-year-old with

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personality changes and memory loss.

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This was the FDG brain PET CT in 2018.

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And we see the cortical hypometabolism in the

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bilateral temporal lobes and bilateral

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frontal lobes. By the way,

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I've mentioned the MIM neuroanalysis

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software several times,

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which is what I use to judge statistical

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significance for patient age.

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the MIM neuroanalysis software.

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You see here that these values,

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these z score values, are in the temporal lobes,

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2.51 on the left and 4.9 on the right,

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and in the frontal lobes, that's negative.

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These are negative values.

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And in the frontal lobes,

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2.98 below the mean and 2.88 on the right side.

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And then the metabolism was within normal limits

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in the parietal and occipital lobes.

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So this type of pattern you see here should

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raise red flags to what this might be.

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Again, the amyloid PET CT was negative.

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And here's another example here where we're

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looking at the atrophy and the marked

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progression in atrophy between 2017 and 2018.

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Here's again the frontal the appearance

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of the frontal in 2017 versus 2018.

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Significant progression in frontal lobe.

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Atrophy.

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So this patient has frontotemporal dementia.

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There are three subtypes of frontotemporal

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dementia. The behavioral variant,

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which manifests as personality and behavioral

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changes, which is what this patient had.

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And this is by far the most common subtype

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of frontotemporal dementia.

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You can also have primary progressive aphasias,

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a nonfluent PPA,

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which is hesitant or labored

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or agrammatic speech,

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and a semantic primary progressive aphasia,

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which is loss of ability to understand

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or formulate words.

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And so the 30% of FTD cases are hereditary,

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most commonly the behavioral variant,

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and it's autosomal dominant.

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And there are several genetic mutations

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that can be seen with FTD.

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It's a younger onset than Alzheimer's disease.

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So 45 to 60 year olds is sort of the common

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age bracket for initial presentation.

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It's much less common than Alzheimer's disease.

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So, for example,

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there's 55,000 people living with FTD in the US

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versus, again, 6 million with Alzheimer's.

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But it is the most common dementia in

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young patients under the age of 60.

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The survival rate is typically six

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to eight years after diagnosis.

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They should have a negative amyloid PET.

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And there are other diseases that are part of

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the FTD spectrum that can primarily

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involve motor changes,

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and these would include ALS and corticobasal

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degeneration and progressive supranuclear palsy.

Report

Faculty

Suzie Bash, MD

Medical Director of Neuroradiology

San Fernando Valley Interventional Radiology & Imaging (SFI), RadNet

Tags

Syndromes

PET

Non-infectious Inflammatory

Neuroradiology

Neuro

MRI

Idiopathic

CT

Brain

Acquired/Developmental

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