Dr Nelson Loh, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital
Establishing an Australian Reference Range for Striatal Binding in Patients with Parkinson's Disease and Healthy Controls with 6-[18F]fluoro-L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (F-DOPA) PET
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Clinical Professor Soumya Ghosh and Dr Nelson Loh
A/Prof Roslyn Francis
Establishing an Australian Reference Range for Striatal Binding in Patients with Parkinson's Disease and Healthy Controls with 6-[18F]fluoro-L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (F-DOPA) PET
Dr Nelson Loh, Clinical Professor Soumya Ghosh, A/Prof Roslyn Francis, Dr Rick Stell, Dr Laurence Morandeau
Idiopathic Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is characterized by progressive loss of neurons in the brain. Late stage PD can be clinically diagnosed with high accuracy by experienced clinicians. However, in the earlier stages of the disease, it may be difficult to diagnose PD on the basis of clinical signs and symptoms.
F-DOPA PET imaging of the brain is indicated for differentiating PD from non-neurodegenerative disorders and to diagnose early PD when the clinical picture is equivocal. This technique has been employed in Europe and USA for this indication, however, to our knowledge, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (SCGH) in WA is one of only two sites in the country using F-DOPA for clinical PET imaging and no Australian data has been published on F-DOPA PET scans for movement disorders.
In our proposed study, we will perform F-DOPA PET imaging in ten healthy volunteer controls and twenty patients with typical clinical features of PD to enable us to determine reference ranges for these groups.
Once the study is complete, this data will be used in the future interpretation of F-DOPA PET scans at our institution and would be made available to other sites around Australia who wish to establish this imaging technique.
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