Role of diffusion tensor imaging in the diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease and essential tremor

• Grant number: 11/18747-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: February 01, 2012 - July 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Medical Radiology
• Principal Investigator: Ellison Fernando Cardoso
• Grantee: Ellison Fernando Cardoso
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Anderson Rodrigues Brandão de Paiva ; André Reis Malaman ; Claudia da Costa Leite ; Edson Amaro Junior ; EDSON BOR-SENG-SHU ; Egberto Reis Barbosa ; João Ricardo Sato ; Kelson James Silva de Almeida ; Leandro Tavares Lucato ; Manoel Jacobsen Teixeira ; Marcelo Buarque de Gusmão Funari ; Mariana Dalaqua

Abstract

The diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) is based on a set of clinical assessments that do not provide great accuracy. Although magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has provided important advances in the diagnosis of many neurological diseases, few biomarkers of PD have been described in order to support its clinical diagnosis. Recently, one single study showed that high field MRI using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was able discriminate PD from healthy volunteers. This study had a small sample size (14 patients and 14 controls) and did not include the main differential diagnosis of PD. The main objective of this study is to confirm previous findings, with a larger sample size, and describe possible changes of DTI parameters in patients with essential tremor (one of the main differential diagnosis of PD). As a consequence, a new algorithm to discriminate PD, essential tremor and healthy volunteers will be proposed. This has a pivotal importance in order to provide support to clinical diagnosis of PD and increase its accuracy. (AU)