Serial dopamine-transporter imaging of Parkinson’s disease: faster progression of clinical and in-vivo patterns in akinetic-rigid patients

Objective: To elucidate whether Parkinson’s disease (PD) subtypes show a different pattern of FP-CIT SPECT binding in the progression of the disease. Methods: In a first step we examined 46 PD patients (31 males, 15 females, mean age 69.9±11.1 years) with [123I]FP-CIT SPECT and clinical ratings including part III of the UPDRS. All patients were divided into the subgroups of tremordominant and akinetic-rigid according to a ‘‘tremor score’’ and a ‘‘non-tremor score’’. In a prospective study we repeated all examinations after a period of 2.48±0.69 years in 27 patients and compared both subgroups for differences in…