title: Autopsy as gold standard in FDG-PET studies in dementia.
abstract: Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging with F18-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is increasingly used as an adjunct to clinical evaluation in the diagnosis of dementia. Considering that most FDG-PET studies in dementia use clinical diagnosis as gold standard and that clinical diagnosis is approximately 80% sensitive or accurate, we aim to review the evidence-based data on the diagnostic accuracy of brain FDG-PET in dementia when cerebral autopsy is used as gold standard. We searched the PubMed and Medline databases for dementia-related articles that correlate histopathological diagnosis at autopsy with FDG-PET imaging and found 47 articles among which there were only 5 studies of 20 patients or more. We were able to conclude that sensitivity and specificity of FDG-PET for Alzheimer's disease are good, but more studies using histopathological diagnosis at autopsy as gold standard are needed in order to evaluate what FDG-PET truly adds to premortem diagnostic accuracy in dementia.
authors.affiliation: Neurology Service, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.
authors.forename: Pascali
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Durand-Martel
authors.forename: Dominic
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tremblay
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Brodeur
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Paquet
mesh_terms: D001344:Autopsy / Q000379:methods; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003704:Dementia / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18