Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine
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Uptake of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) and 11C-methionine (Met) in mediastinum and hilar lymph nodes was studied using PET in 31 patients with sarcoidosis. The aim of our study was to examine whether these different tracers play a differential role in clinical assessment of pulmonary involvement. ⋯ The results suggest that the FDG/Met uptake ratio using PET may reflect the differential granulomatous status in sarcoidosis and be a useful tool for pretreatment evaluation.
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The aims of this study were to investigate whether the loss of striatal dopamine transporters in early and drug-naive patients with Parkinson's disease could be demonstrated by means of 123I-N-omega-fluoropropyl-2beta-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4-iodoph enyl)tropane (123I-FP-CIT) SPECT in a 1-day protocol and whether the SPECT measures were correlated with disease severity. ⋯ Our findings indicate that 123I-FP-CIT SPECT is a reliable method to discriminate between early, drug-naive Parkinson's disease patients and healthy controls and to identify patients in the preclinical phase of Parkinson's disease. Possibly due to the relatively homogeneous group of Parkinson's disease patients and the use of a suboptimal outcome measure, no significant correlations were found between striatal 123I-FP-CIT binding ratios and disease severity, such as were established earlier with 123I-beta-CIT. Further research is necessary to interpret these findings.