Contribution of PET studies in diagnosis of corticobasal degeneration

Five patients with clinical features of corticobasal degeneration (CBD) wer e studied with PET imaging. The main clinical findings included a unilatera l extrapyramidal motor disorder, without significant response to levodopa, as well as clumsiness, dysarthria, apraxia and a clear asymmetry of neurolo gical signs. PET studies with F-18-labeled 2-deoxy-2-fluoro-D-glucose discl osed mainly a significant hypometabolism in the thalamus and motor cortex c ontrolateral to the more affected limbs. Additional relationships between i ndividual clinical signs and PET data were also found. We concluded that PE T findings supported the clinical diagnosis of CBD, although the specific p attern related to this condition needs to be more precisely defined. Furthe r studies are especially needed to correlate clinical data and PET results with pathological examination. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel.