Parkinson's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Parkinson's Disease, including details on symptoms, treatment, genetics, medication.

Higher nigrostriatal dopamine neuron loss in early than late onset Parkinson's disease?--a [99mTc]-TRODAT-1 SPECT study.

Shih MC, Franco de Andrade LA, Amaro E, Felicio AC, Ferraz HB, Wagner J, Hoexter MQ, Lin LF, Fu YK, Mari JJ, Tufik S, Bressan RA

Laboratório Interdiciplinar de Neuroimagem e Cognição (LiNC), Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil. mingchi@psiquiatria.epm.br

Early-onset Parkinson's disease (EOPD) is distinct from the classic late-onset PD (LOPD) because of its slower disease progression. The aim of this study was to compare dopamine neuronal loss in EOPD with that of LOPD with the same disease duration, through dopamine transporter (DAT) estimation. Fourteen patients, seven EOPD (<50 years) and seven LOPD, matched for disease duration were scanned with [(99m)Tc]-TRODAT-1-SPECT (INER-Taiwan), and were assessed with standard PD scales. EOPD patients had 34% lower striatal DAT binding potential (BP) compared with that of LOPD patients (BP = 0.29 +/- 0.12, BP = 0.44 +/- 0.12, P < 0.02) with similar PD severity. These results suggest that EOPD patients have greater dopamine density loss than LOPD patients without motor-symptom worsening.

Published 1 May 2007 in Mov Disord, 22(6): 863-6.
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