Correlation of Clinical Features With Argyrophilic Grains at Autopsy

Abstract

Argyrophilic grains (AGs) are a pathologic feature found in association with neurodegenerative disease. Some have suggested that these features may occur as a distinctive condition. We reviewed 80 subjects from our tissue bank with pathologically confirmed AGs and identified their clinical features. We compared these subjects' features to the features of subjects with matched clinical diagnoses but without AGs. Subjects with AGs represented 21.7% of the entire autopsy sample from 1999 through 2005 (80/367). Of AD subjects, 43 /233 had AGs (18.4% of AD subjects); 11 /42 PD-D subjects had AGs (26.1% of PDD subjects); 2 / 9 DLB subjects had AGs (22.2% of DLB subjects); 4 /15 MCI subjects had AGs (26.7% of MCI subjects); and 20 /68 cognitively normal subjects had AGs (29.4% of NC). Subjects with AGs tended to be older but only significantly so in AD. Many co-morbid non-neurological health conditions were seen in cases of AGs without any single predilection emerging. AGs occur in approximately 22% of the entire autopsy cohort and likely are associated with advanced age. No distinctive antemortem clinical features were overrepresented in the AG cases. AGs can occur with or without neurodegenerative conditions and can occur in the absence of significant cognitive decline. AGs are not clearly associated with any single co-morbid health condition.

Parkinson's disease dementia: convergence of α-synuclein, tau and amyloid-β pathologies

“…One study found that argyrophilic grain disease was a common feature of PDD; 99 however, it did not seem to correlate well with PDD in two large autopsy series. 22, 75 TDP-43 inclusions, which are characteristic of frontotemporal lobar degeneration and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, have also been found in limbic regions in a small number of PD and PDD patients, 100 but they do not seem to influence the outcome of dementia in PD.…”

Neuropathologic Heterogeneity Does Not Impair Florbetapir-Positron Emission Tomography Postmortem Correlates

“…Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) was defined semi-quantitatively with three levels of severity by analogy to the CERAD templates; for this study, significant CAA was defined when one or more cerebral lobes had a severity score of 2 or higher. Argyrophilic grains (Arg) were defined as typical spindle-shaped structures revealed by the Gallyas silver stain (26, 27) and were recorded as being present or absent.…”

Primary age-related tauopathy (PART): a common pathology associated with human aging

“…Also commonly seen in brains from individuals of advanced age are tau-immunoreactive argyrophilic grains. However, argyrophilic grain disease is a 4R tauopathy featuring CA2 pretangles and dentate granule cell involvement, all acetylated tau-negative, none of these features are seen in AD/PART [54, 71, 84, 107, 120, 136, 138]. …”