Effect of nilvadipine on regional cerebral blood flow in a patient with early Alzheimer disease.

Hypertension in an 83-year-old woman with early Alzheimer disease was treated with a calcium channel blocker, nilvadipine, for 3 months. Before and after nilvadipine treatment, global and regional cerebral blood flow (gCBF and rCBF) were measured using Tc-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer SPECT. This treatment elevated both the Mini-Mental State Examination score from 23 to 27 and gCBF from 37.6 to 42.0 mL/100 g/min. This treatment also elevated rCBF prominently in the bilateral frontal cortex, right parietal cortex, and posterior cingulate cortex. These areas with rCBF increase generated by subtraction of pretreatment SPECT from post-treatment SPECT were demonstrated on a coregistered MRI.