대한노인정신의학회

The aim was to evaluate the diagnostic utility of beta-amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) in elderly patients with cog-nitive impairment in the clinical setting. Five subjects underwent beta-amyloid PET imaging to explore the cerebral beta-amyloid deposition. The two male patients with minor neurocognitive disorder due to Alzheimer’s disease, who displayed similar degree of cognitive impairment and medial temporal atrophy but different in apolipoprotein E4 status, both showed negative for beta-amyloid PET. On the other hand, a female major neurocognitive disorder due to probable Alzheimer’s disease patient was tested positive for beta-amyloid PET, with increased beta-amyloid density in frontal and parietal lobes. Beta-amyloid PET was also used for the dif-ferential diagnosis of neurocognitive disorder from other psychiatric disorders in two elderly patients. The results were negative but assisted the diagnositic confirmation. A female patient was determined to be a case of late-onset schizophrenia and a male patient was determined as delirium due to minor traumatic brain injury, persistent. Beta-amyloid PET imaging was able to demonstrate ce-rebral beta-amyloid deposition in major neurocognitive disorder due to probable Alzheimer’s disease in visual scale. However, fur-ther studies are needed for its clinical utility in the minor neurocognitive disorders. Moreover, beta-amyloid PET imaging may pro-vide additional information in diagnosing primary psychiatric disorders with new onset in the old age.

Alzheimer disease,Neurocognitive disorders,Beta-amyloid protein,Positron-emission tomography,Late onset disorders,알츠하이머병,신경인지장애,베타아밀로이드 단백질,양전자방출단층촬영,만발성장애.