title: Monitoring therapeutic effects in Parkinson's disease by serial imaging of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic pathway.
abstract: PET and SPECT are very sensitive techniques to detect in-vivo nigrostriatal degeneration in Parkinson's disease, even in the pre-motor phase of the disease. Furthermore, these techniques are able to measure disease progression. However, caution must be used in the interpretation of studies in which therapeutic effects in Parkinson's disease were also monitored by serial imaging of nigrostriatal neurons, as disparity between imaging and clinical outcomes has been reported in several clinical studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. j.booij@amc.uva.nl
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Booij
authors.forename: Henk W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Berendse
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000978:Antiparkinson Agents / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology*; D018450:Disease Progression; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D013378:Substantia Nigra / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology*; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
chemical_list: D000978:Antiparkinson Agents; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D004298:Dopamine