Assessment of cerebral blood flow findings using 99mTc-ECD single-photon emission computed tomography in patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder.
BACKGROUND
Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is used as an ancillary diagnostic tool in clinical psychiatry. A variety of SPECT studies has been conducted on the findings and the factors that affect the findings, and there is a possibility that age has an effect on cerebral blood flow. We used SPECT to verify the cerebral blood flow findings of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) considering the effect of age on the findings.


METHODS
We conducted a retrospective survey of inpatients who fulfilled the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for MDD and who had undergone imaging by technetium-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer ((99m)Tc-ECD) SPECT (N=98, 37 males). After excluding organic factors and comorbidities, we established a depression group (N=61, 24 males) and conducted an inter-group comparison with a normal control group by using SPM software considering the effect of age.


RESULTS
The depression group showed the reduction of cerebral blood flow in the prefrontal area bilaterally, predominantly on the left, including the orbitofrontal cortex, anterior portion of the gyrus cinguli, and dorsolateral prefrontal area, in the left temporal lobe, and in the occipital lobe bilaterally, predominantly on the left. The findings were common to all age groups and that age-specific pattern was not detected.


CONCLUSIONS
The facts that this was a retrospective study and small sample size in each age group were limitations of this research. Although it also seems important to evaluate the impact of medication on cerebral blood flow and conduct an evaluation according to the subtype of depression, but we couldn't in this study. In the future it will be necessary to accumulate additional cases and conduct additional studies, including a prospective survey.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study may suggest the existence of a common biological background in patients with MDD that is unaffected by age.
Department of Psychiatry, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Tokyo, Japan. yuko78s53@yahoo.co.jp
Yuko
Y
Nagafusa
Nagahisa
N
Okamoto
Kota
K
Sakamoto
Fumio
F
Yamashita
Atushi
A
Kawaguchi
Teruhiko
T
Higuchi
Hiroshi
H
Matsuda
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D003545:Cysteine / Q000031:analogs & derivatives; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon; D055815:Young Adult
D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; C059659:technetium Tc 99m bicisate; D003545:Cysteine