Glucose metabolic dysfunction in subjects with a clinical dementia rating of 0.5.

Objective: To investigate the cerebral glucose metabolism of subjects who had a Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) of 0.5, we studied 40 subjects whose CDR was 0.5 and 40 age-matched healthy subjects.

Methods: Cerebral glucose image of each subject was obtained by [18F]-2-fluoro-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET). The anatomically standardized images were produced with NEUROSTAT. Then, the two groups were compared with the Statistical Parametric Mappings (SPM) 99.

Results: A comparison with the SPM 99 revealed that relative cerebral glucose metabolism was lower in the posterior cingulate gyri and parietal lobules in the CDR 0.5 group than in the healthy subjects group.

Conclusion: These findings are very similar to those in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) and suggest that the majority of subjects with CDR 0.5 are suffering from very mild AD or at least a prodromal state of AD.