Fulminant Lewy body disease

Abstract

The clinical distinction between Parkinson's disease (PD) with dementia (PDD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is challenged by most neuropathological studies showing nearly identical changes in both conditions. We report an unusual case of PD evolving into a rapidly progressive dementia leading to death within 3 months that showed nearly all clinical features of DLB. At autopsy, numerous Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites were found in several areas of the brainstem, the limbic system, and the neocortex, consistent with pure DLB. This case demonstrates that Lewy body disease may exhibit a dramatic course without any coexisting pathology and exemplifies that PD, PDD, and DLB may sometimes represent sequential, yet overlapping, phenotypes of a same clinicopathological entity.