Christian Bancher

• MD
• Head of Department at Landesklinikum Horn

Background ‘Definite Neuroborreliosis (NB)’ is diagnosed with the presence of NB-specific symptoms, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pleocytosis and an elevated Borrelia Burgdorferi antibody index. However, some diagnostic uncertainties exist. The B-cell chemokine CXCL13 represents an emerging biomarker for the diagnosis and treatment of NB because its in...

Botulinum toxin-A (BoNT-A) is recommended as third-line off-label treatment for the management of neuropathic pain. BoNT-A has been reported as treatment for different neuropathic pain conditions; however, not for neuropathic pain after decompressive craniotomy for stroke. The aim of this retrospective case series is to provide information on safet...

Background C9orf72 repeat expansions have been observed in a wide variety of neurodegenerative disorders. The cut-off between normal and pathogenic alleles is not well established as repeat sizing methods are often semi-quantitative. However, intermediate alleles might influence disease prevalence and phenotype, as seen for other repeat expansion d...

Background Intravenous thrombolysis improves functional outcome in patients with acute stroke and frequencies of r-tPA (recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator) treatment have been increasing over time. We aimed to assess whether functional outcome in r-tPA–treated patients improved over time and to investigate the influence of clinical varia...

Background Botulinum toxin A (BoNT-A) is considered a safe and effective treatment for spasticity and dystonia. Individual interinjection intervals are critical for the maintenance of the effect. In Austria, BoNT outpatient clinics were shutdown from November to December 2020 during COVID-19 control measures, leading to rescheduling of BoNT-A injec...

Zusammenfassung Die Hippocampussklerose beschreibt das neuropathologische Bild einer Verödung unterschiedlicher Sektoren des Hippocampus. Sie tritt im Rahmen von 5 klinischen und neuropathologischen Entitäten auf. Während sie bei jungen Patienten im Rahmen einer Temporallappenepilepsie vorkommen kann, tritt sie weit häufiger im Rahmen degenerativer...

Older adults are particularly affected by the current COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. The risk of dying from COVID-19 increases with age and is often associated with pre-existing health conditions. Globally, more than 50 million-in Austria currently approximately 140,000 people-suffer from dementia. The co-occurrence of dementia as a "pandemic of o...

Objectives: To review available evidence of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment for MCI and analyse information and limitations in national and international guidelines. Methods: Experts from several European countries conducted a qualitative review of the literature on MCI and treatments for MCI, as well as respective chapters in nat...

Hintergrund: Nach einem Schlaganfall zeigen sich neben den typischen neurologischen Defiziten oftmals auch Einschränkungen des kardiovaskulären und autonomen (vegetativen) Systems. Moderates Ausdauertraining verbessert die kardiovaskuläre Kapazität und die Herzratenvariabilität (HRV) bei gesunden, älteren und Herzerkrankten. Bei Patienten nach Schl...

Background Few studies have investigated in detail which factors influence activities of daily (ADL) in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Objective To assess the influence of cognitive, gender, and other factors on ADL in patients with mild to moderate AD. Methods This study is part of the Prospective Registry on Dementia in Austria (PRODEM) project, a m...

Objective: To assess the influence of cognitive, functional and behavioral factors, co-morbidities as well as caregiver characteristics on driving cessation in dementia patients. Methods: The study cohort consists of those 240 dementia cases of the ongoing prospective registry on dementia in Austria (PRODEM) who were former or current car-driver...

The Austrian Alzheimer Society developed evidence-based guidelines based on a systematic literature search and criteria-guided assessment with subsequent transparent determination of grades of clinical recommendation. The authors evaluated currently available therapeutic approaches for the most common forms of dementia and focused on diagnosis and...

We performed a 6-month open-label study on the use of the transdermal rivastigmine patch in clinical routine in 103 patients with Alzheimer's disease from 25 outpatient services in Austria. After baseline, safety and tolerability of the 10 cm2--rivastigmine patch was assessed at week 4, 12 and 24 in all patients. A Mini Mental State Examination was...

Cholinesterase inhibitors and memantine can slow the course of Alzheimer's disease. In Austria the frequency of treatment is in the upper third among countries of the EU. Yet, the majority of Alzheimer patients does not receive adequate medication. Compliance to treatment is low. Studies on cholinesterase inhibitors show that only one third and one...

To investigate the frequency of mutations in the Leucine-Rich Repeat Kinase 2 gene (LRRK2) in a sample of Austrian Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, we sequenced the complete coding region in 16 patients with autosomal dominant PD. Furthermore, we sequenced exons 31, 35, and 41 additionally in 146 patients with idiopathic PD and 30 patients with d...

Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) accounts for approximately 20 % of all autopsy-confirmed dementias in the elderly. Presumably, DLB is underdiagnosed in patients without or with only mild Parkinsonian symptoms in the daily routine of memory clinics. This motivated the Austrian Alzheimer Society and the Austrian Parkinson Society to inform about core...

Without Abstract

Two years ago the first statements were published by the Austrian Alzheimer Society. These consensus statements include an update of the recommendations for the diagnosis and therapy of dementing disorders based on scientific evidence and expert opinion. Intended readership consists of neurologists, psychiatrists, general practitioners and all othe...

Immunoreactivities of amyloid beta peptide((1-42)) (Abeta42-IR) and total tau protein (TTIR) were measured in lumbar cerebrospinal fluid of 48 patients (12 patients in each group) with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), vascular dementia (VD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease without dementia (PD) and 24 controls (CON) using sensitiv...

These consensus statements include recommendations for the diagnosis and therapy of dementing disorders based on scientific evidence and expert opinion. Intended readership consists of neurologists, psychiatrists, general practitioners and all other health care professionals involved in care of demented patients. Diagnostics methods for screening a...

Der Alternsprozess des Gehirns als ein Teilgeschehen im Altern des Gesamtorganismus umfasst eine Reihe von Gewebsveränderungen, die als Strukturwandel in Abhängigkeit von der Zeit aufzufassen sind. Man unterscheidet orthologische Altersveränderungen des Gehirns ohne klinischen Stellenwert and pathologische Alterungsvorgänge als Korrelate zerebralen...

This article is a review of scientific work on Alzheimer neurofibrillary degeneration and Ass-amyloidosis that was done in collaboration with Dr. Henryk Wisniewski, in part at the Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities. Our work on paired helical filaments and the tau protein spans from basic immunocytochemical analyses of brain...

The Vienna Stroke Registry (VSR) comprises nine neurological departments of Vienna and was established in 1998. This article describes the objectives and methodology of the VSR. The goals of the VSR are as follows: (1) to document the quality (structure, process, outcome) of medical services and to construct a database which can be used for future...

Takayasu arteritis (TA) is a rare manifestation of systemic large vessel vasculitis which affects predominantly the aorta and its main branches, but often remains unrecognised owing to delayed diagnosis and non-characteristic clinical features. Sarcoidosis, too, is a systemic inflammatory disease which can affect virtually any organ system. Reports...

Neuronal loss is prominent in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and its mechanisms remain unresolved. Apoptotic cell death has been implicated on the basis of studies demonstrating DNA fragmentation and an up-regulation of proapoptotic proteins in the AD brain. However, DNA fragmentation in neurons is too frequent to account for the continuous neuronal los...

In a 64-year old woman with progressive visual impairment for 4 weeks, probable Creutzfeld-Jakob disease without myoclonus was diagnosed after rapidly progressive mental deterioration had also developed, and CSF and EEG showed characteristic findings. Pattern-reversal and flash visually-evoked potentials, recorded 5, 6, 7 and 8 weeks after onset, s...

Apoptosis has been shown to be an efficient mechanism involved in clearance of T lymphocytes from the brains of animals with acute experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model for human multiple sclerosis. In this report we describe a case of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis following general measles infection. In this disea...

To evaluate CSF levels of beta-amyloid(1-42) (Abeta42) alone and in combination with CSF tau for distinguishing AD from other conditions. At 10 centers in Europe and the United States, 150 CSF samples from AD patients were analyzed and compared with 100 CSF samples from healthy volunteers or patients with disorders not associated with pathologic co...

Frontal lobe dementia (FLD) is characterised clinically by personality changes and a progressive speech disorder finally leading to mutism. In the course of the disease also other neurological syndromes may occur such as parkinsonism, a partial Klüver-Bucy-syndrome or a degeneration of motoneurons (FLD + MND). The latter leads to death within about...

Die Frontallappendemenz (FLD) ist ein klinisches Syndrom, das durch Persönlichkeitsveränderungen und eine rasch progrediente Sprachstörung bis hin zum Mutismus gekennzeichnet ist. Im Rahmen der Erkrankung kann auch ein Parkinsonsyndrom, ein partielles Klüver-Bucy-Syndrom oder eine Motoneuronendegeneration (FLD + MND) auftreten. Letztere führt inner...

Although nerve cell loss is prominent in certain brain regions in Alzheimer disease (AD), it is currently unresolved how these cells die. Recent studies unanimously agree that there are more neurons displaying DNA fragmentation in AD compared with normal controls. However, controversy remains as to whether cell death is mediated by apoptosis or nec...

Senile dementia with tangles is a sporadic subset of very late onset dementia with preponderance in females over age 80 years. Neuropathology shows diffuse cerebral atrophy with neurofibrillary tangles, often ghost tangles, and neuropil threads almost limited to limbic areas (transentorhinal, entorhinal area, hippocampuS--not exclusively sector CA...

Although nerve cell loss is prominent in certain brain regions in Alzheimer disease (AD), it is currently unresolved how these cells die. Recent studies unanimously agree that there are more neurons displaying DNA fragmentation in AD compared with normal controls. However, controversy remains as to whether cell death is mediated by apoptosis or nec...

The unequivocal diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) rests on histopathological evidence at brain autopsy or biopsy. The morphology of AD includes cerebral atrophy, deposition of beta A4 amyloid (A beta) (senile plaques and amyloid angiopathy), neuritic changes (neuritic plaques, neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) and neuropil threads) with formation o...

A diagnostic test for Alzheimer's disease (AD) based on biochemical markers in the cerebrospinal fluid can help improve diagnostic accuracy, which currently is approximately 90%, leaving every tenth AD patient undiagnosed or falsely diagnosed as having the disease. From all biochemical abnormalities described in AD patients, those related to the ha...

In an attempt to gather information on procedures, criteria, and possible difficulties, we have sent a detailed questionnaire on the postmortem diagnosis of Alzheimer disease (AD) to 169 neuropathologists in the German-speaking countries--Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Of a total of 104 responses, 65 completed questionnaires were evaluated stat...

Apolipoprotein E (apoE) genotypes were analyzed in a subset of demented very old patients who share a uniform neuropathological picture consisting of various numbers of neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) in allocortical areas of the inferomedial temporal lobe without significant numbers of either diffuse amyloid or neuritic plaques. Among 18 patients wi...

Defining criteria for the postmortem diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has proven difficult due to the phenotypical heterogeneity of the disease, the absence of a specific disease marker and an overlap of AD neuropathology with that observed in a number of nondemented aged individuals. Even though the role of plaques and tangles in the pathogen...

The etiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD) as well as its exact pathogenesis are unknown. Eventhough the deposition of beta A4 and the formation of neurofibrillary tangles represent impressive morphological hallmarks of the disease, several lines of evidence suggest that both lesions are not sufficient as causes of the neurodegenerative process. On t...

This paper compares the clinical diagnosis of dementia with the result of the neuropathological brain examination in 23 patients. Aim of this investigation was a verification of the clinical diagnosis. The diagnosis was based on the clinical findings, the Mini Mental State Examination, DSM-III-R classification of dementia, the NINCDS-ADRDA-criteria...

The association between the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) epsilon 4 allele and Parkinson's disease (PD) with coexistent dementia has remained controversial. We determined ApoE allele frequencies in 35 subjects with neuropathologically confirmed Lewy body Parkinsonism with and without concomitant Alzheimer lesions, 27 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD...

We have studied the relationship between measles virus and the accumulation of abnormally phosphorylated tau (PHF-tau) in nine cases of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE). By assessing the presence of viral intranuclear inclusions and neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) in each case, we found no correlation between presence and amount of measles...

The association between the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) ϵ4 allele and Parkinson's disease (PD) with coexistent dementia has remained controversial. We determined ApoE allele frequencies in 35 subjects with neuropathologically confirmed Lewy body Parkinsonism with and without concomitant Alzheimer lesions, 27 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and...

The symptoms and signs used to diagnose progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) should be easily identifiable by neuropathologists and neurologists as well as by movement disorder experts. The presence, at the time of death, of symptoms and signs that are used in published clinical criteria for the diagnosis of this disorder was searched for in 21 pat...

Tau protein and apolipoprotein E are suggested to be biochemically related to neurofibrillary tangles and senile plaques in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brains. They can be detected as immunoreactive material (total tau immunoreactivity [TTIR] and apolipoprotein E-immunoreactivity [ApoEIR]) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). TTIR and ApoE-IR have been m...

Quantitative clinicopathological correlation studies are one way to address the question of the relevance of morphological abnormalities in Alzheimer's dementia (AD). This paper summarizes results of the Vienna Longitudinal Study on Dementia obtained during the past few years and presents a critical discussion on the relevance of clinicopathologica...

We investigated the validity and reliability of diagnoses made by eight neuropathologists who used the preliminary NINDS neuropathologic diagnostic criteria for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and related disorders. The specific disorders were typical, atypical, and combined PSP, postencephalitic parkinsonism, corticobasal ganglionic degenerat...

This is a case report of a non-Alzheimer frontal lobe degeneration (FLD) in an 85 year old female. The diagnosis suspected clinically due to a partial Kluver-Bucy-syndrome and an advanced speech disorder was strenghthened by CT and SPECT findings and was confirmed by neuropathology.

Tau protein and apolipoprotein E (ApoE) were measured in lumbar cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), aged depressed patients, other neurological disorders, and in cohorts of younger and elder controls, using a specific ELISA method. CSF in AD patients revealed a highly significant elevation of tau and an insignifican...

HISTORY AND FINDINGS: A 65-year-old woman was twice hospitalized because of disorientation and insomnia with depression. In the course of antidepressive treatment the symptoms regressed each time so that the diagnosis was made of pseudo-dementia during depression. About a year after the first admission the symptoms recurred, despite continued antid...

Full textFull text is available as a scanned copy of the original print version. Get a printable copy (PDF file) of the complete article (268K), or click on a page image below to browse page by page. 106

Loss of nerve cells is a hallmark of the pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), yet the patterns of cell death are unknown. By analyzing DNA fragmentation in situ we found evidence for cell death not only of nerve cells but also of oligodendrocytes and microglia in AD brains. In average, 30 times more brain cells showed DNA fragmentation in AD as c...

Anamnese und Befunde: Eine 65jälirige Patientin mußte wegen Desorientiertheit und Schlafstörungen bei depressiver Stimmungslage zweimal stationär aufgenommen werden. Unter antidepressiver Therapie bildeten sich die Symptome jeweils wieder zurück. Es wurde die Diagnose einer Pseudodemenz im Rahmen einer Depression gestellt. Etwa ein Jahr nach der er...

Mental dysfunctions (dementia) in Parkinson's disease (PD) having an average prevalence of 20-30% are caused by lesions of various neuronal systems, the molecular and pathogenic causes of which are poorly understood: 1. Dysfunctions of cortico-subcortical systems with neuronal losses in medial substantia nigra or ventral tegmentum (mesocorticolimbi...

Primary hyperparathyreoidism (pHPT)) is a rare cause of confusional states and treatable dementias. A male aged 74 with slowly progressive organic psychosyndrome, prolonged confusional state with optic hallucinations, and somnolence is reported. Cranial CT scan revealed no organic brain lesion. EEG showing diffuse slowing of bioelectric activity wa...

Die progressive supranukleäre Paralyse (PSP), eine seltene (Inzidenz: ca. 1:100 000) neurodegenerative Erkrankung, wurde erstmals von Steele, Richardson und Olszewski im Jahre 1964 an acht Patienten beschrieben, die durch eine vertikale Blicklähmung, Nackendystonie, Pseudobulbärparalyse und milde Demenz auffällig waren. Die neuropathologische Unter...

Loss of nerve cells is a hallmark of the pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), yet the patterns of cell death are unknown. By analyzing DNA fragmentation in situ we found evidence for cell death not only of nerve cells but also of oligodendrocytes and microglia in AD brains. In average, 30 times more brain cells showed DNA fragmentation in AD as c...

In a normal mature neuron, microtubule associated protein tau promotes the assembly of tubulin into microtubules and maintains the structure of microtubules. In Alzheimer disease brain, tau is abnormally hyperphosphorylated and is the major protein subunit of paired helical filaments (PHF). In the present study, the biological activity of tau in PH...

In a consecutive autopsy series of 580 demented elderly subjects, 256 with the clinical diagnosis of probable/possible Alzheimer's disease (AD), there were 10 cases aged between 80 and 99 years with moderate to severe dementia or confusional state in which neuropathological studies revealed abundant neurofibrillary tangles with predominant involvem...

Dementia syndromes in adults can be caused by many different conditions that find their pathological correlates in seven major groups of CNS disorders: 1. presenile and senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (AD/DAT), the diagnosis of which is based on quantitative assessment of neuritic changes — neuritic plaques, neurofibrillary tangles — probably...

In both Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), in contrast to amyloid deposits, show a hierarchical spreading pattern from the allocortex to isocortical association areas with early involvement of the entorhinal region, a major relay station between hippocampus and isocortex. Based on the distribution...

Number and morphology of microglial cells (MC) were compared in 6 cases each of Pick's disease (PD), Alzheimer's disease (AD) and controls using immunohistochemistry with the monoclonal antibody Ki-M1P. The severely involved neocortex of both PD and AD, and in particular the white matter subjacent to spongy PD lesions showed a marked increase of MC...

Three neuropathologists evaluated brain sections from 43 aged subjects for the presence of Alzheimer's disease. Moderate-to-substantial agreement was obtained. After discussion of disparate diagnoses, agreement was almost perfect for standardized and substantial for personal criteria. We conclude that reproducibility can be improved if diagnoses ba...

To explore the utility of cultured skin fibroblasts in investigating diseases of the nervous system in which constituents characteristic of neurons are involved, sensitive immunochemical methods were used to test for the presence in skin fibroblasts of low amounts of proteins normally used as neuronal markers. The presence of each of the neurofilam...

We have analysed several markers for small synaptic vesicles (synaptin-synaptophysin, p65 and SV2) and large dense-core vesicles (chromogranin A, secretogranin II/chromogranin C) in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, and normal controls by immunoblotting and immunohistochemistry. In comparison to age-matched controls the levels of all...

On tissue sections of Alzheimer brain, 4 antibodies to tau immunolabel not only neurofibrillary tangles, neuritic plaques and neuropil threads but also the tangle-free cytoplasm of a subset of hippocampal and cortical neurons we believe to be at a stage of alteration preceding the formation of paired helical filaments (PHF). Pretreatment of tissue...

Alzheimer's disease causes about 80% of dementias in old age. The pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease are senile plaques (SP) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), which to a lesser degree can also be found in the brains of mentally intact elderly. The question whether SP or NFT or any other process are primarily correlated to severity of de...

The reported findings suggest that ubiquitination of pathological proteinaceous intracytoplasmic inclusions is not at all specific of AD. On the contrary it appears to be a general biochemical marker for disorders in the degradation of a variety of cytoskeletal and other cytoplasmic proteins. The pattern of affected cytoskeletal components is not s...

We examined the brains of 385 mentally retarded adults aged 23-90 years without Down's syndrome (DS), metabolic disorder, or hydrocephalus to extend our knowledge about the occurrence of Alzheimer-type neuropathology in this population. Relevant measures of neuropathology also were related to selected information available from clinical records. Th...

The morphology, incidence and distribution of plaques and diffuse amyloid deposits in the brains of seven old dogs (18.5–26.5 years of age) were examined on tissue sections immunocytochemically stained with two monoclonal antibodies to two distinct epitopes of the beta-protein. Amyloid deposits were found in all seven brains examined. Amyloid occur...

Neurofibrillary tangles in Alzheimer’s disease were analysed by light and electron microscopic immunocytochemistry using antibodies against cytoskeletal antigens and ubiquitin. Our studies indicate that the antigenicity of paired helical filaments is profoundly changed during the stages of tangle formation and maturation. In addition, tangle format...