New Approaches in Nuclear Medicine for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease

Dementia, Alzheimer's disease (AD) being the most common cause of it, is a major and growing medical and social problem, particularly in the advanced age, with the highest rate in the population over 75 y. Recent sophisticated therapeutic measures require more sensitive diagnostic tests to recognize early stages of the disease. In this paper, the current neuronuclear imaging literature is reviewed with regard to early and differential diagnosis of dementia. Functional imaging with single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) could provide the clinician with additional information complementary to morphological assessments, thus contributing to achieve a more adequate diagnosis, and also with information regarding prodromal stages of AD.