RESEARCH ARTICLE
Parkinson's Disease in Patients with Essential Tremor: A Prospective Clinical and Functional Neuroimaging Assessment
Gabriel Sampaio Froehner1, Carlos Henrique Ferreira Camargo1, *, Giorgio Fabiani1, 2, 3, Alex Tiburtino Meira4, Raul Martins Filho5, Renato Puppi Munhoz6, Hélio Afonso Ghizoni Teive1, 2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2022Volume: 16
E-location ID: e1874205X2202071
Publisher ID: e1874205X2202071
DOI: 10.2174/1874205X-v16-e2202071
Article History:
Received Date: 18/1/2022Revision Received Date: 31/3/2022
Acceptance Date: 20/4/2022
Electronic publication date: 28/09/2022
Collection year: 2022
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Introduction:
Patients with essential tremor (ET) have 3.5 times greater risk of developing Parkinson's disease (PD) throughout their lives, also known as PD with antecedent ET (ET-PD). Single photon emission computed tomography with radiotracer imaging of dopamine transporters (TRODAT-SPECT) can help differentiate these two diseases.
Method:
Relate the results of TRODAT-SPECT imaging in patients with ET to potential progress to ET-PD. Thirty-six patients with ET were evaluated by neurological examination, the Archimedes spiral, and the MDS-UPDRS III scale on two occasions, after a mean interval of three years. SPECT was performed on all patients after the first visit.
Results:
Overall, six patients (16.6%) progressed clinically to ET-PD. Patients with ET-PD were older, and the age of tremor onset was later. The ET-PD group scored higher on the MDS-UPDRS III scale, especially for the presence of bradykinesia. SPECT imaging was altered in 83.3% of the ET-PD patients compared to 33% of the ET patients (p=0.034). Changes on the SPECT with asymmetrical hypouptake suggested progress to ET-PD (p=0.025).
Conclusion:
Advanced age at the onset of tremor, the presence of bradykinesia, and asymmetrical alterations in SPECT may be related to progression to PD in patients with ET. Changes in neuroimaging suggest that SPECT-TRODAT can be used to predict progression to PD in selected patients.
