title: Akinetic crisis in Parkinson's disease is associated with a severe loss of striatal dopamine transporter function: a report of two cases.
abstract: Akinetic crisis or acute akinesia is a life-threatening complication of Parkinson's disease (PD) with unknown pathophysiological mechanisms. Clinically, it resembles the neuroleptic malignant syndrome, and dopaminergic drugs are transiently ineffective in the acute phase of the condition. There are no published dopaminergic functional imaging studies on PD patients with akinetic crisis. Here we report 2 advanced PD patients with akinetic crisis who were scanned with SPECT using brain dopamine transporter ligand [(123)I]FP-CIT. The first patient was additionally scanned before the condition developed, and the second patient was scanned after recovery. Striatal dopamine transporter binding was lower during than before the crisis, and both patients showed a nearly complete loss of dopamine transporter binding during the crisis. Serial imaging showed that the uptake remained negligible despite an improvement in motor function after recovery. Akinetic crisis in PD appears to be associated with a particularly severe loss of presynaptic striatal dopamine function that does not improve after recovery. Apart from presynaptic dopaminergic function, other dopaminergic or nondopaminergic mechanisms are involved in the clinical improvement of motor functions after akinetic crisis in PD.
authors.affiliation: Division of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland ; Turku PET Centre, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Valtteri
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kaasinen
authors.affiliation: Turku PET Centre, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Juho
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Joutsa
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, University of Turku and Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Tommi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Noponen
authors.affiliation: Visby Lasarett, Visby, Sweden.
authors.forename: Markku
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Päivärinta
keywords: Akinesia; Dopamine transporter; Parkinson's disease; SPECT