Sung-Yeon Park1, Se-Hong Oh1, Chong-Sik Lee2, Sang-Jun Kim3, Jae-Seung Kim4, Young-Bo Kim1, Z.H. Cho1
1Neuroscience Research Institute, Gachon University of Medicine and Science, Incheon, Korea; 2Institute for Parkinson's Research, Ulsan University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea; 3Department of Radiology, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea; 4Department of Nuclear Medicine, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea
Differential diagnosis of MSA-p from PD is notoriously difficult, especially in the early stage. We studied 19 MSA (6 MSA-p, 4 MSA-mixed, 9 MSA-c), 7 PD and 14 normal subjects. We used 1.5T MR scanner and the DTI parameters are single-shot EPI sequence, b = 900s/mm2 and 30 directions. We showed that DTI selectively detected lesions in the middle cerebellar peduncle and/or posterior putamen in MSA patients. Our data showed the possible degeneration of the middle cerebellar peduncle precedes clinical appearance of cerebellar ataxia, and suggested that MSA-p can be separated from PD even if the patient shows parkinsonism only.