Deep-gray nuclei susceptibility-weighted imaging filtered phase shift in patients with Wilson's disease.
BACKGROUND
Susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) is a useful tool for evaluating brain paramagnetic mineralization. The aim of this study was to evaluate SWI filtered phase shift in brain gray nuclei of Wilson's disease (WD).


METHODS
Twenty-three WD patients and 23 age- and gender-matched healthy controls underwent SWI. Phase values of bilateral brain gray nuclei were measured on corrected phase image of all subjects.


RESULTS
Compared with healthy controls, WD patients showed a trend of negative phase shift in all regions of interest, and significantly lower phase value was found in bilateral putamen (PU) (left P = 0.009, right P = 0.001), caudate (left P = 0.001, right P = 0.001), thalamus (TH) (left P < 0.001, right P < 0.001), red nucleus (left P = 0.031, right P = 0.049), and substantia nigra (left P = 0.003, right P = 0.047). The WD patients groups were divided into neurological, hepatic, and asymptomatic onset subgroups. And neurological onset patients had lower phase value than hepatic onset patients on bilateral PU (left P = 0.025, right P = 0.002) and TH (left P = 0.025, right P = 0.025).


CONCLUSIONS
Abnormal negative phase value was significantly increased in brain gray nuclei of WD patients, giving evidence in vivo about paramagnetic mineralization accumulating in brain gray nuclei. The phase shift of SWI could be used as a potential biomarker to help in diagnosing and evaluating WD.
Department of MRI, Shandong Medical Imaging Research Institute, Shandong University, Jinan, People's Republic of China.
Xue
X
Bai
Department of MRI, Shandong Medical Imaging Research Institute, Shandong University, Jinan, People's Republic of China.
Guangbin
G
Wang
Department of MRI, Shandong Medical Imaging Research Institute, Shandong University, Jinan, People's Republic of China.
Lebin
L
Wu
Department of Neuroradiology, Shandong Provincial Hospital, Jinan, People's Republic of China.
Yubo
Y
Liu
Department of Neuroscience, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego, California.
Li
L
Cui
Department of MRI, Shandong Medical Imaging Research Institute, Shandong University, Jinan, People's Republic of China.
Honglu
H
Shi
Department of MRI, Shandong Medical Imaging Research Institute, Shandong University, Jinan, People's Republic of China.
Lingfei
L
Guo
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015415:Biomarkers; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006527:Hepatolenticular Degeneration / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male
D015415:Biomarkers