Precise diagnosis of presenile dementia is a great challenge. The only valuable classification of dementia is the neuropathological one. We present the first series of stereotactic biopsies in 28 presenile patients (18 males, age 39 ≤ 58 ≤ 69 years, and 10 females, age 23 ≤ 52 ≤ 66 years). The results demonstrate that the clinical and paraclinical diagnosis (including positron emission tomography scan, neuropsychological examinations, computed tomography scan, electroencephalogram) in only one third of all cases and only in 50% of the Alzheimer and Creutzfeld-Jakob cases. This is very important to be kept in mind when epidemiology or efficacy of drugs are investigated without any neuropathological confirmation.

Keywords:
Stereotactic surgery, Brain biopsy, Dementia, Alzheimer's disease, Pick's disease, Kufs' disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Metachromatic leucodystrophy
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© 1990 S. Karger AG, Basel
1990
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