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. 2020 Apr-Jun;34(2):178-182.
doi: 10.1097/WAD.0000000000000308.

Dementia With Lewy Bodies: A Clinicopathologic Series of False-positive Cases

Leonie J M Vergouw  1 , Luca P Marler  1 , Wilma D J van de Berg  2 , Annemieke J M Rozemuller  3   4 , Frank Jan de Jong  1 ; Netherlands Brain Bank,†
Affiliations

Dementia With Lewy Bodies: A Clinicopathologic Series of False-positive Cases

Leonie J M Vergouw et al. Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord. 2020 Apr-Jun.

Abstract

Diagnosing dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is challenging as symptoms are heterogenous and not specific to the disease. Here we present a clinicopathologic series of false-positive DLB cases. Patients were enrolled retrospectively from the Netherlands Brain Bank when they met the clinical criteria of probable DLB, but with a pathologic diagnosis other than DLB or Parkinson's disease dementia. Twenty-two false-positive cases were selected. Alzheimer disease with or without copathology was the most common (64%) pathologic diagnosis. Other pathologic diagnoses, such as frontotemporal dementia, multiple-system atrophy, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and autoimmune encephalitis, were also encountered. Atypical clinical signs for DLB were present in almost half of the cases and could be a trigger to consider other diagnoses than DLB. Additional diagnostic examinations, feedback of pathologic diagnosis, and the creation of a set of clinical features that are indicative of other conditions, could reduce the amount of false-positive DLB cases.

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