The utilisation of the Na/I symporter (NIS) and associated radiotracers as a reporter system for imaging gene expression is now reaching the clinical setting in cancer gene therapy applications. However, a formal assessment of the methodology in terms of normalisation of the data still remains to be performed, particularly in the context of the assessment of activities in individual subjects in longitudinal studies. In this context, we administered to mice a recombinant, replication-incompetent adenovirus encoding rat NIS, or a human colorectal carcinoma cell line (HT29) encoding mouse NIS. We used 99mTc pertechnetate as a radiotracer for SPECT/CT imaging to determine the pattern of ectopic NIS expression in longitudinal kinetic studies. Some animals of the cohort were culled and NIS expression was measured by quantitative RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry. The radioactive content of some liver biopsies was also measured ex vivo. Our results show that in longitudinal studies involving datasets taken from individual mice, the presentation of non-normalised data (activity expressed as %ID/g or %ID/cc) leads to ‘noisy’, and sometimes incoherent, results. This variability is due to the fact that the blood pertechnetate concentration can vary up to three-fold from day to day. Normalisation of these data with blood activities corrects for these inconsistencies. We advocate that, blood pertechnetate activity should be determined and used to normalise the activity measured in the organ/region of interest that expresses NIS ectopically. Considering that NIS imaging has already reached the clinical setting in the context of cancer gene therapy, this normalisation may be essential in order to obtain accurate and predictive information in future longitudinal clinical studies in biotherapy.

Objectives

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) accounts for 10%–15% of dementia cases at autopsy and has distinct clinical features associated with earlier institutionalisation and a higher level of carer distress than are seen in Alzheimer's disease (AD). At present, there is on-going debate as to whether DLB is associated with a more rapid cognitive decline than AD. An understanding of the rate of decline of cognitive and non-cognitive symptoms in DLB may help patients and carers to plan for the future.

Design

In this cohort study, the authors compared 100 AD and 58 DLB subjects at baseline and at 12-month follow-up on cognitive and neuropsychiatric measures.

Setting

Patients were recruited from 40 European centres.

Participants

Subjects with mild–moderate dementia. Diagnosis of DLB or AD required agreement between consensus panel clinical diagnosis and visual rating of 123I-FP-CIT (dopamine transporter) single photon emission computed tomography neuroimaging.

Outcome measures

The Cambridge Cognitive Examination including Mini-Mental State Examination and Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI).

Results

The AD and DLB groups did not differ at baseline in terms of age, gender, Clinical Dementia Rating score and use of cholinesterase inhibitors or memantine. NPI and NPI carer distress scores were statistically significantly higher for DLB subjects at baseline and at follow-up, and there were no differences between AD and DLB in cognitive scores at baseline or at follow-up. There was no significant difference in rate of progression of any of the variables analysed.

Conclusions

DLB subjects had more neuropsychiatric features at baseline and at follow-up than AD, but the authors did not find any statistically significant difference in rate of progression between the mild–moderate AD and DLB groups on cognitive or neuropsychiatric measures over a 12-month follow-up period.

Article summary

Article focus

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) has distinct neuropsychiatric features.

At present, we do not know whether the poorer prognosis of DLB is due to a more rapid cognitive decline compared with Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Key messages

In this fairly large cohort of patients with DLB and AD, while there was no difference in level of cognitive impairment (Cambridge Cognitive Examination (CAMCOG) score) at baseline and at 12-month follow-up, DLB patients had significantly higher Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) and NPI carer distress scores both at baseline and at 12-month follow-up.

Therefore, the worse prognosis of DLB is likely to be mediated by neuropsychiatric or other symptoms and not only by cognitive decline.

Strengths and limitations of this study

Inclusion of high number of subjects from 40 European clinical centres.

Well-characterised cases with both consensus panel clinical diagnosis (three clinical experts) and dopaminergic transporter single photon emission computed tomography imaging.

No autopsy data were available and therefore it is possible that more rapid cognitive decline may be present in pure DLB.

Only 1 year of follow-up.

There was higher attrition rate (no-follow-up assessment) in the DLB group, and DLB patients that did not return for follow-up were more impaired than AD patients.