title: How useful is (123I) beta-CIT SPECT in the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease?
abstract: Because clinical features of parkinsonism can occur in other forms of parkinsonian syndromes in addition to Parkinson's disease, neuroimaging may have a role in determining true disease status. Iodine-123 ((123)I) (2beta-carboxymethoxy-3beta-[4-iodophenyl] tropane) or ((123)I) beta-CIT is a recently developed diagnostic biomarker of Parkinson's disease that provides in vivo information about nigrostriatal degeneration. In clinical trials, beta-CIT single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) has been shown to be a highly sensitive diagnostic tool in differentiating clinically probable Parkinson's disease from normal subjects and essential tremor patients. As a tool for differentiating Parkinson's disease from atypical parkinsonian syndromes, ((123)I) beta-CIT SPECT may have more limited use because of more extensive postsynaptic pathology in the latter. Differentiating among various parkinsonian syndromes may be improved by methodological refinements, a combined strategy of imaging presynaptic and postsynaptic sites, or by metabolic imaging.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, UCLA Medical Center, The David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Roongroj
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bhidayasiri
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000378:metabolism; D003042:Cocaine / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000378:metabolism; D020329:Essential Tremor / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes / Q000378:metabolism; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000378:metabolism; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals / Q000378:metabolism; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; C069723:2beta-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4-iodophenyl)tropane; D003042:Cocaine