[Diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Evaluation of senile plaques of the diffuse type].

The different types of plaques throughout the thickness of the pole of the temporal lobule of brains from autopsies of a patient with Alzheimer's disease and two elderly patients with normal cognitive function were quantified. Thioflavin-S techniques and cholinesterase marking indicating amyloid aggregates were employed. If the Khachaturian criteria had been followed one of the controls would have also been diagnosed with involvement of Alzheimer's disease. The aforementioned control and patients with Alzheimer's disease had numerous senile plaques, most of which were diffuse, however, only the patient with senile dementia also had neuritic plaques. This fact indicates the convenience of reviewing the pathologic diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in two ways: firstly, specific techniques for neurofibrillary degeneration should be included and secondly, the plaques with neurofibrillary degeneration should be quantified since diffuse plaques without degeneration appear to have a questionable significance with respect to this diagnosis.