title: Update on SPECT and PET in parkinsonism - part 1: imaging for differential diagnosis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To give an update on recent findings concerning the use of single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) for differential diagnosis and prognosis of neurodegenerative parkinsonism and related disorders.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Several studies confirmed the very high diagnostic accuracy and clinical impact of imaging nigrostriatal function (most notably with [I]FP-CIT-SPECT) for diagnosing neurodegenerative parkinsonism and dementia with Lewy bodies. Accurate differential diagnosis of neurodegenerative parkinsonism can be achieved by imaging disease-specific patterns of cerebral glucose metabolism with [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose-PET, which surpasses the diagnostic accuracy of other currently available radionuclide imaging techniques.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  SPECT and PET are established methods for the differential diagnosis of parkinsonism with significant therapeutic and prognostic impact. Given the limited accuracy of the clinical diagnosis as the reference standard, future studies with post-mortem verification are needed for validation of diagnostic imaging pattern, particularly in tauopathies.
authors.affiliation: aDepartment of Nuclear Medicine bDepartment of Neurology cDepartment of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Philipp T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hellwig
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / Q000379:methods*