Background: Dementia with Lewy bodies remains underdiagnosed in clinical practice mainly because of the low sensitivity of existing diagnostic criteria and a strong overlap with Alzheimer's pathology that can mask the Lewy phenotype.
Objective: The objective of this study was therefore to develop and validate a new clinical scale designed to detect signs of Lewy body disease, called LeSCoD for Lewy body Screening scale in Cognitive Disorders.
Methods: 128 patients who fulfilled the clinical criteria of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB; n = 32), Alzheimer's disease (AD; n = 77) or both (n = 19) was prospectively enrolled. 18F-DOPA PET imaging and/or CSF biomarkers were available in some patients. LeSCoD scale was systematically administered and the potential correlation with 18F-DOPA PET imaging was evaluated in a subgroup of patients.
Results: LeSCoD scale showed robust internal and external validity. We determined a cut-off of 10 above which the sensitivity and specificity for Lewy body disease diagnosis were 86% and 95%, respectively. The LeSCoD scale correlated with striatal dopamine uptake in 18F-DOPA PET.
Conclusion: LeSCoD scale is a simple and reliable tool for the evaluation of Lewy body disease in routine clinical practice, with a higher sensitivity and specificity than the existing criteria. It might be an alternative to the use of dopamine-specific imaging.
Keywords: 18F-DOPA PET; Alzheimer’s disease; Dementia with Lewy bodies; Lewy body disease.
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