Clinicopathologic significance of granulovacuolar degeneration in Alzheimer's disease.

Abstract

The observation of granulovacuoles in the hippocampal pyramidal neurons in cases of senile dementia was made at the turn of the century, but the extent to which the abnormality is specific and of diagnostic value in morphologic classification has not been clearly established. An analysis of the abnormality in a series of 200 unselected autopsies on patients with all forms of mental disease is presented. Granulovacuolar degeneration among the hippocampal neurons is a constant finding in Alzheimer's disease which lends itself to easy recognition and quantitation using routine staining methods. With approximate quantitation the abnormal feature has sufficient specificity to be of diagnostic value, and, in contrast to more commonly used morphologic criteria, granulovacuolar degeneration retains its specificity for the clinical manifestations of Alzheimer's disease throughout the “senile” age period.