Dementia Japan 23: 1-5, 2009

Very early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease at the stage of mild cognitive impairment: an overview

Masahito Yamada

Department of Neurology and Neurobiology of Aging,
Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medical Science

    A recent report of the long-term effects of Aβ₄₂ immunization in Alzheimer's disease (AD) has suggested that anti-amyloid therapies against AD may be too late at the stage of progressive dementia to stop progression of neurodegeneration with clinical deterioration, even if amyloid deposits can be removed from the brain. Very early diagnosis of AD at the stage of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) would be essential for effective therapies. This overview is dealing with the current status and future perspectives of diagnostic tools for very early AD, including MRI, cerebrospinal fluid markers, cerebral blood flow-SPECT, FDG-PET, and amyloid-PET. Discrimination of AD from the other disorders at the stage of MCI requires further investigation of the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity as well as appropriate methodology for each tool.

Address correspondence to Dr. Masahito Yamada, Department of Neurology and Neurobiology of Aging, Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medical Science (13-1 Takaramachi, Kanazawa 920-8640, Japan)