HIGH PROPORTION OF DEMENTIA WITH LEWY BODIES IN THE POSTMORTEMS OF A MENTAL HOSPITAL IN GERMANY

Objective. Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is under-recognized in Germany. No data on the number of patients suffering from this condition in Germany are available at present. We were interested in the proportion of DLB in the postmortems of demented inpatients in the care of a psychogeriatric service. Design. In a retrospective study we examined consecutive postmortems of inpatients who died in one mental hospital. Setting. A suburban and rural old age psychiatry service in Germany. Patients. 103 consecutive postmortems had been performed from 9/1987 to 6/1995. Fifty-nine (57.3%) of all cases warranted the clinical diagnosis of dementia (DSM-III-R). Measures. The causes of dementia were examined histologically. Lewy bodies (LBs) were detected with ubiquitin immunohistochemistry. Results. DLB was the third most frequent cause of dementia (13.6% of demented), after dementia of Alzheimer's type (DAT) (35.6%) and mixed DAT and vascular dementia (15.3%), but ahead of ‘pure’ vascular dementia (MID). The DLB group showed a male preponderance compared with the DAT, MID and mixed group of our series. The DLB patients died younger than the DAT patients. The differences, however, were not statistically significant. All DLB cases showed neurofibrillary and amyloid pathology sufficient to warrant an additional diagnosis of DAT. Cases with ‘pure’ LB pathology had not been detected in our series. Conclusions. Our results indicate that by using appropriate methods, ie ubiquitin immunohistochemistry, a considerable number of DLB cases can be detected in postmortems of demented patients from German mental hospitals. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.