A study questions whether right- and left-sided temporal FTD are separate disorders
Original source
Frontotemporal dementia with right temporal predominance: a clinical comparison with left-predominant FTD. (opens in a new tab)Compass summarised this from the study's abstract.
Study details
- Studied in
- Human
A retrospective study compared 51 people with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) whose greatest anterior temporal lobe atrophy was on the right or left. Right-sided disease was associated with difficulty recognising people, impaired decision-making, repetitive preoccupations, disinhibition and reduced empathy, but symptoms overlapped between groups. The authors support a shared diagnostic framework based on symptoms and behaviour rather than brain-imaging side.
Why this matters
The findings may help clinicians classify FTD, including cases diagnosed with FTD and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more consistently. They do not establish a new ALS treatment or change treatment for people with ALS.
Limitations and context
This was a retrospective comparison of 51 patients identified from a clinical database. Group differences became less clear as disease progressed, and diagnostic measures had modest sensitivity and specificity. The study also found that not all people with left-sided atrophy met criteria for semantic-variant primary progressive aphasia, so imaging location alone may not define the clinical syndrome.