Cerebral glucose metabolic patterns in Alzheimer's disease. Effect of gender and age at dementia onset.

No previous study of Alzheimer's disease has, to our knowledge, assessed the effect of both age at dementia onset and gender on cerebral glucose metabolic patterns. To this end, we used positron emission tomography (fludeoxyglucose F 18 method) to study 24 patients with clinical diagnoses of probable Alzheimer's disease. Comparisons of the 13 patients with early-onset dementia (less than 65 years of age) with the 11 patients with late-onset dementia (greater than 65 years of age) revealed significantly lower left parietal metabolic ratios (left posterior parietal region divided by the hemispheric average) in the early-onset group. The metabolic ratio of posterior parietal cortex divided by the relatively disease-stable average of caudate and thalamus also separated patients with early-onset dementia from those with late-onset dementia, but not men from women. Further comparisons between sexes showed that, in all brain regions studied, the 9 postmenopausal women had higher nonweighted mean metabolic rates than the 15 men from the same age group, with hemispheric sex differences of 9% on the right and 7% on the left. These results demonstrate decreased parietal ratios in early-onset dementia of Alzheimer's disease, independent of a gender effect.