engleski

Transcranial sonography in evaluation of patients with movement disorders

Purpose: Since there is no widely accepted test to help us confirm Parkinson’s disease (PD) or Essential tremor (ET), clinical examination of well-established symptoms is the still most accurate way of diagnosis. However, the misdiagnosis rates for PD and ET in the early stages is as high as 20–30% in PD and in about one of three patients in ET. We initiated this study to assess the usefulness of the transcranial sonography (TCS) in the evaluation and differential diagnosis of the patients with ET. Methods: Our study was performed on 150 individuals, including 30 patients suffering from ET, 60 PD patients, and 60 matched controls. TCS was applied by standardized protocol, SN was displayed, encircled, and measured two times. Mean area was calculated. Mann Whitney U test for inter-group comparison was used. Results: In the control group and PD group, bilateral combined mean SN size was 0.17 cm2 (±0.07) and 0.27 cm2 (±0.06), which showed significant difference (p < 0.001). Patients with ET had mean SN size of 0.15 cm2 (±0.04), for the right side 0.15 cm2 (±0.04) and 0.16 cm2 (±0.05) for the left, which was significantly different from PD group (p < 0.001), but not from control group (p = 0.240). Conclusion: Our study confirmed previous finding that SN hyperechogenicity in TCS is a highly specific finding of PD, which might help in confirming PD diagnosis in doubtful clinical cases or in the early stages of the disease when symptoms of PD and ET might be overlapping.

TCS ; transcranial sonography ; movement disorders ; Parkinson's

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