• O Piguet, W S Brooks, G M Halliday, P R Schofield, P M Stanford, J B J Kwok, M-G Spillantini, D Yancopoulou, P J Nestor, G A Broe, and J R Hodges.
• Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, Univeristy of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
• J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. 2004 Dec 1; 75 (12): 174317451743-5.

BackgroundIt is unclear whether there are early clinical features that can distinguish between patients with familial and non-familial frontotemporal dementia (FTD).ObjectiveTo compare the clinical features of FTD cases who have tau gene mutations with those of cases with a family history of FTD but no tau gene mutation, and with sporadic cases with neither feature.Methods And ResultsComparisons of the behavioural, cognitive, and motor features in 32 FTD patients (five positive for tau gene mutations, nine familial but tau negative, and 18 tau negative sporadic) showed that age of onset and duration to diagnosis did not differ between the groups. Apathy was not observed in tau mutation positive cases, and dysexecutive signs were more frequent in familial tau mutation negative cases. Memory deficits and behavioural changes were common in all groups.ConclusionsIn comparison with other neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, neither tau gene mutations nor strong familial associations confer earlier disease susceptibility.

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