MNS: Differential diagnosis of Parkinsonism using 18F-FP-CIT
18F-FP-CIT PET/CT imaging was useful in the differential diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and drug-induced Parkinsonism, according to a presentation at the Molecular Neuroimaging Symposium this week in Bethesda, Md.

Jae Gol Choe, MD , professor of nuclear medicine , Korea University Anam Hospital, Korea University College of Medicine in Seoul, Korea, and his group investigated the usefulness of a PET tracer for dopamine transporter imaging, F-18-N-(3-fluoropropyl)-2-carbomethoxy- 3-(4-iodophenyl) nortropane (18F-FP-CIT) in the differential diagnosis of patients with Parkinsonism.

The researchers studied 27 clinically diagnosed Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients, 6 patients with drug-induced Parkinsonism (DIP), and 8 age-matched normal controls with 18F-FP-CIT PET/CT.

Choe and colleagues observed that in patients with PD, V3” in the caudate nucleus (2. 69) and putamen (2. 10) was significantly lower than those of DIP patients (3. 69 and 3. 99, respectively) and normal controls (3. 88 and 4. 16, respectively).

There was no significant striatal V3” difference between DIP patients and normal controls. The ratio of putamen-to-caudate nucleus V3” of PD patients (0.77) was significantly lower than those of DIP (1.09) and normal controls (1. 07), indicating that putamen is more affected than caudate nucleus in PD, according to Choe and colleagues.

“Evaluation of striatal dopamine transporter density with 18F-FP-CIT PET/CT imaging was useful in the differential diagnosis of PD and DIP”, concluded the researchers.
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