Specialised Imaging- and CSF-Diagnostic Methods

Imaging methods improve diagnostic accuracy in dementia, especially in early stages of the disease.

Imaging sessions are located in the same building as the ambulatorium. We have close collaborations with the Nuclear Medicine Department and the Department of Neuroradiology of the University Hospital Zurich.

Using this device, PET and MR scans can be obtained at the same time. To date, only a few such devices exist worldwide. This scanner provides very good resolution while also enabling the simultaneous evaluation of the PET and MR images.

In patients with dementia-related disorders we primarily use FDG PET, which shows sugar metabolism. This method does a good job of differentiating among various causes of memory impairment. In addition, so-called amyloid PET improves the diagnostic accuracy for Alzheimer’s dementia.

The PET-CT is used for similar applications as the PET-MR,  but without collecting MR data. Should MRinformation be required, it can still be obtained on a separate MR scanner.

MRI is especially well-suited to detecting structural changes in brain tissue and allows for the exclusion of other causes of memory impairment, such as brain tumours or strokes.

CSF diagnostics come into play if we are seeking an additional gain in diagnostic accuracy.  They help to exclude inflammatory brain diseases and to measure biomarkers. CSF-based biomarkers are proteins that give indications of whether or not Alzheimer’s pathology is present in the brain.