Correlation of clinical, MRI and Tc-99m HMPAO SPECT findings in neuro-Behçet's disease.
Behçet's disease (BD) is a systemic disorder of unknown cause. In our study, we investigated the utility of Tc-99m HMPAO SPECT and MRI in patients with neuro-Beh,cet's disease (n-BD).


METHODS
Twelve patients (two females, ten males; mean age 33 +/- 9.6 yr; age range 18-45 yr) with n-BD, fulfilling the criteria of the International Study Group for BD, were included in the study. MRI was performed according to a standard protocol with 1 or 1.5 T imagers. Brain SPECT data were obtained using a single head gamma camera after 555 MBq Tc-99m HMPAO injections. Following image reconstruction, regional cerebral perfusion was evaluated both visually and semi quantitatively.


RESULTS
Neurological examination showed parenchymal brain involvement in 6 of 12 patients (50%). All 6 patients had white matter lesions on MRI, while only 5 of them showed perfusion defects on brain SPECT. Out of 6 patients (50%) without clinical signs of parenchymal brain involvement, 1 patient showed a pathological brain SPECT and 3 patients showed pathological MRI findings. Semiquantitative analysis of brain regions on SPECT study showed statistically significant hypoperfusion of biparietal regions.


CONCLUSIONS
This study investigates the correlation between clinical, MRI and SPECT findings and it shows discrepancy between these findings in some cases. Brain SPECT may act as a complementary modality to increase the detection rate of affected regions in patients with n-BD.
Cengiz
Nilgün
N
Department of Neurology, Ondokuz Mayis University, Faculty of Medicine, Samsun, Turkey. nlgnc@yahoo.com
Sahin
Murathan
M
Onar
Musa
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001528:Behcet Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D019690:Technetium Tc 99m Exametazime; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / Q000379:methods*
D019690:Technetium Tc 99m Exametazime