Parkinson's disease
A common neurodegenerative disease in the elderly
The incidence rate is second only to Alzheimer's disease
In every 100 elderly people over 65 years old,
There are 1-2 suffering from Parkinson's disease
With the aging
The number of people in this population will continue to grow
Parkinson's disease
It is difficult to diagnose early : often miss the best treatment period
Typical Parkinson's disease is mainly manifested as slow movements, involuntary limb tremors during rest, muscle stiffness, etc.... Generally speaking, based on these "obvious" clinical manifestations, it is not difficult for doctors to make a correct diagnosis, but in fact, had already occurred in before these clinical symptoms appeared. By the time these symptoms appeared, the pathological damage of the patient was actually more serious. Although Parkinson's disease can be diagnosed more easily, the best time for treatment intervention has often been missed.
Therefore, how can diagnose Parkinson's disease early before symptoms appear and improve the accuracy of early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease? This is an important topic in the field of Parkinson's disease research today.
PET technology: non-invasive examination improves early diagnosis rate
PET is the English abbreviation for positron emission tomography. Like traditional CT and MRI examinations, PET is also a non-invasive imaging examination method. The difference is that it can use tracers to display the distribution of target molecules in the body. The emergence of PET/CT and PET/MR can obtain dual information on the human structure and physiological metabolic function at one time. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly recognized by doctors and patients in the diagnosis of malignant tumors, pre-treatment evaluation and efficacy evaluation. In fact, PET is also widely used in the diagnosis of neurological diseases. In brain imaging, PET can provide pathophysiology and molecular level information, and provides strong evidence for the diagnosis and treatment decisions of neurological diseases (especially neurodegenerative diseases and brain tumors, etc.).
Take Parkinson's disease as an example . Long before the motor symptoms appeared, many patients had already experienced substantia nigra dopamine neuron loss and pathological changes in Lewy body. Over time, this lesion continues to accumulate until the substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons are lost to a certain extent, and motor symptoms such as hand tremor and slow movements appear. PET shows the loss of substantia nigra neurons through dopamine axis imaging and brain glucose metabolism imaging shows the mobility of brain cells . It can detect the loss of substantia nigra neurons in the patient's brain in the early stage of the disease, thereby improving the early diagnosis rate. Many patients can even clearly diagnose before motor symptoms appear.
At present, the most commonly used dopamine axis PET imaging in clinically, which can intuitively display the loss of dopaminergic neurons on the image. In addition, both "Mystery Disease" and Parkinson's disease are progressive diseases, and their severity is closely related to the degree of loss of dopaminergic neurons. Therefore, regular monitoring of dopamine axis PET imaging can objectively and quantitatively evaluate the progress of the disease, providing a basis for clinical treatment.
In Huashan Hospital, there have been a total of 1,900 cases of PET imaging of Parkinson's disease and high-risk populations, of which 1,000 cases have undergone dopamine axis imaging and glucose metabolism imaging at the same time, increasing the diagnosis rate of Parkinson's disease to more than 93%. This technology has been maturely applied in more than 10 hospitals in China.
Fire Eye Golden Eye : Identification of different degenerative diseases
In addition to early diagnosis, distinguishes different neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease , and refuses to misdiagnose, which is also an important skill of PET. The clinical manifestations of Parkinson's
Parkinson's disease are very similar to Parkinson's superposition syndromes such as "multiple system atrophy" and "progressive supranuclear paralysis". Clinically, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish based on symptoms alone. It often requires long-term follow-up of experienced neurology experts to identify and confirm the diagnosis, but after a while, it often delays the opportunity for the treatment of the disease.In terms of treatment, the above diseases are also very different: Parkinson's disease patients usually have better efficacy in anti-Parkinson's treatment (such as dopamine replacement therapy, deep brain electrical stimulation, etc.) and the disease progresses slowly; relatively speaking, patients with multiple system atrophy and progressive supranuclear paralysis have poor responses to anti-Parkinson's treatment, the condition changes quickly, and the treatment methods are also different.
PET has a unique advantage and also plays an important role in disease identification: due to differences in pathological changes, the three diseases are significantly different in dopamine axis imaging and brain metabolic imaging. Combined with imaging and clinical evaluation, the three can be effectively distinguished in the early stage of the disease, and doctors can prescribe the right medicine based on the accurate diagnosis and symptoms to help patients control their condition as soon as possible.
In addition, through follow-up PET imaging, clinicians can well track the development and changes of the disease, understand the treatment response, and adjust the treatment plan according to the changes in the disease.
PET is a field where nuclear medicine imaging is developing very rapidly today, and it has unique advantages in the diagnosis of neurological diseases. Huashan Hospital PET Center currently has a variety of tracers used to diagnose brain tumors, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and other diseases. The development and promotion of
PET examination has brought good news to the majority of Parkinson's patients. Early diagnosis of the disease can not only enable patients to undergo effective treatment as soon as possible, alleviate the condition, and prolong their survival, but also greatly reduce the hard work and anxiety of running around due to inability to diagnose.
