Abstract #1677

Diagnostic value of diffusion tensor imaging and positron emission tomography in early stages of frontotemporal dementia

Julia Krämer¹, Gero Lueg², Jan-Gerd Tenberge¹, Patrick Schiffler¹, Alexis Vrachimis³, Matthias Weckesser³, Christian Wenning³, Andreas Johnen¹, Matthias Pawlowski¹, Sven G. Meuth¹, and Thomas Duning¹

¹Department of Neurology, Westfälische Wilhelms University, Münster, Germany, ²Department of geriatric medicine and early rehabilitation, Marien Hospital Herne, Herne, Germany, ³Department of Nuclear Medicine, Westfälische Wilhelms University, Münster, Germany

The study intended to investigate the sensitivity of DTI and FDG-PET in 30 patients with early behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) despite inconspicuous conventional MRI. Based on individual FDG-PET data analysis, 20 patients were rated as bvFTD “typical” with bifrontal/ bitemporal hypometabolism (bvFTD/PET+) and 10 patients as “not typical/normal” (bvFTD/PET-). DTI voxel-based group analyses revealed bifrontal/ bitemporal microstructural degeneration in all patients. However, individual DTI data analysis revealed alterations in only 14%. Neuropsychological symptoms were associated to DTI and FDG-PET identifiable cerebral changes. Summarising improvement of individual DTI analysis tools is necessary to make this technique applicable for clinical routine.

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