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New Trends in the Diagnosis and Therapy of Non-Alzheimer’s Dementia pp 47–59Cite as

The neuropathologic diagnostic criteria of frontal lobe dementia revisited. A study of ten consecutive cases

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Journal of Neural Transmission Supplement ((NEURAL SUPPL,volume 47))

Summary

Ten successive cases from the Neuropathology Laboratory of La Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, were selected on the presence of:

  • dementia and prominent symptoms and signs of the frontal type;

  • a degenerative disease without markers other than Pick cells, Pick bodies or ubiquitin-labelled non argyrophilic inclusions.

We propose the following steps to diagnose the degenerative dementia associated with symptoms and signs of the frontal type:

  1. 1.

    If there is severe frontotemporal atrophy, severe neuronal loss and astrogliosis, many ballooned neurons and characteristic inclusions that are both tau and ubiquitin positive, the diagnosis is Pick disease.

  2. 2.

    If signs of motor involvement (sometimes unnoticed by the clinician) are present with mild cortical atrophy and mild spongiosis of layers II–III, the diagnosis of frontal lobe degeneration associated with motor neuron disease is warranted. Ubiquitin positive inclusions are useful, but non specific, markers.

  3. 3.

    When there are neither Pick inclusions nor motor neuron disease, the diagnosis may be frontal lobe atrophy lacking distinctive histology.

This paper has been given at the XIIth International Congress of Neuropathology, Toronto, September 18–23, 1994

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Neuropathologie R Escourolle, La Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris VI University and INSERM U 360, Association Claude Bernard, Paris, France

    Prof. J. J. Hauw, C. Duyckaerts, D. Seilhean, S. Camilleri & V. Sazdovitch

  2. Service de Neurologie, La Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris VI University, France

    G. Rancurel

  3. Laboratoire de Neuropathologie R Escourolle, Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, 47 Bd. de l’Hôpital, F-75651, Paris Cedex 13, France

    Prof. J. J. Hauw

Authors
  1. Prof. J. J. Hauw
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  2. C. Duyckaerts
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  3. D. Seilhean
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  4. S. Camilleri
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  5. V. Sazdovitch
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  6. G. Rancurel
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. L. Boltzmann Institute of Clinical Neurobiology, Lainz-Hospital, Vienna, Austria

    Kurt A. Jellinger

  2. EBEWE-Research Initiative, Graz, Austria

    Manfred Windisch

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© 1996 Springer-Verlag

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Hauw, J.J., Duyckaerts, C., Seilhean, D., Camilleri, S., Sazdovitch, V., Rancurel, G. (1996). The neuropathologic diagnostic criteria of frontal lobe dementia revisited. A study of ten consecutive cases. In: Jellinger, K.A., Windisch, M. (eds) New Trends in the Diagnosis and Therapy of Non-Alzheimer’s Dementia. Journal of Neural Transmission Supplement, vol 47. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-6892-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-6892-9_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-211-82823-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-7091-6892-9

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