Subject(s)
Amyloidosis/diagnostic imaging , Heart Diseases/diagnostic imaging , Aged , Amyloidosis/complications , Aniline Compounds , Echocardiography , Ethylene Glycols , Fluorine Radioisotopes , Heart Diseases/complications , Humans , Magnetic Resonance Imaging , Male , Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography , Ventricular Dysfunction, Left/diagnostic imaging , Ventricular Dysfunction, Left/etiologyABSTRACT
Limbic encephalitis is a subacute onset syndrome characterized by short-term memory impairment, confusion, temporal lobe epilepsy, hypothalamic dysfunction, and psychiatric symptoms. Common causes are autoimmune disorders or idiopathic disease, although it has been associated to tumors. We report the case of a woman arrived at the emergency department having had fluctuating impaired memory for 2 weeks. The first MRI was normal. It was decided to perform lumbar puncture and PET/CT to exclude viral origin or paraneoplastic syndrome. Typical abnormalities were found in the second MRI (1 month after previous); however, FDG PET is a useful tool that contributes to early detection.
Subject(s)
Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 , Limbic Encephalitis/diagnostic imaging , Multimodal Imaging , Positron-Emission Tomography , Radiopharmaceuticals , Tomography, X-Ray Computed , Female , HumansABSTRACT
Gradually, FDG-PET/CT has been strengthening within the diagnostic algorithms of oncological diseases. In many of these, PET/CT has shown to be useful at different stages of the disease: diagnosis, staging or re-staging, treatment response assessment, and recurrence. Some of the advantages of this imaging modality versus CT, MRI, bone scan, mammography, or ultrasound, are based on its great diagnostic capacity since, according to the radiopharmaceutical used, it reflects metabolic changes that often occur before morphological changes and therefore allows us to stage at diagnosis. Moreover, another advantage of this technique is that it allows us to evaluate the whole body so it can be very useful for the detection of distant disease. With regard to breast cancer, FDG-PET/CT has proven to be important when recurrence is suspected or in the evaluation of treatment response. The technological advancement of PET equipment through the development of new detectors and equipment designed specifically for breast imaging, and the development of more specific radiopharmaceuticals for the study of the different biological processes of breast cancer, will allow progress not only in making the diagnosis of the disease at an early stage but also in enabling personalized therapy for patients with breast cancer.
ABSTRACT
We herein report the case of a 84-year-old man with a 4-year history of freezing of gait (FOG) consistent with the diagnosis of primary progressive freezing gait. Single photon emission tomography (SPECT) with a radiolabeled ligand of the dopamine transporter (DAT-SPECT) showed integrity of striatal dopaminergic terminals, whereas brain perfusion SPECT disclosed multiple areas of decreased perfusion in frontal and parietal lobes, as well as in the subcortical gray nuclei of both sides. Treatment with the new irreversible monoamine oxidase B inhibitor rasagiline at standard doses resulted in a rapid, dramatic, and sustained improvement of the frequency and duration of FOG episodes. In addition, brain perfusion SPECT after treatment showed a marked increase of the activity in all cortical areas as well as in the basal ganglia and thalamus. Rasagiline may prove to be an effective and safe treatment for this disabling condition.
