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Automated striatal uptake analysis of 18F-FDOPA PET images applied to Parkinson’s disease patients

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Abstract

Objective

6-[18F]Fluoro-l-DOPA (FDOPA) is a radiopharmaceutical valuable for assessing the presynaptic dopaminergic function when used with positron emission tomography (PET). More specifically, the striatal-to-occipital ratio (SOR) of FDOPA uptake images has been extensively used as a quantitative parameter in these PET studies. Our aim was to develop an easy, automated method capable of performing objective analysis of SOR in FDOPA PET images of Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients.

Methods

Brain images from FDOPA PET studies of 21 patients with PD and 6 healthy subjects were included in our automated striatal analyses. Images of each individual were spatially normalized into an FDOPA template. Subsequently, the image slice with the highest level of basal ganglia activity was chosen among the series of normalized images. Also, the immediate preceding and following slices of the chosen image were then selected. Finally, the summation of these three images was used to quantify and calculate the SOR values. The results obtained by automated analysis were compared with manual analysis by a trained and experienced image processing technologist.

Results

The SOR values obtained from the automated analysis had a good agreement and high correlation with manual analysis. The differences in caudate, putamen, and striatum were −0.023, −0.029, and −0.025, respectively; correlation coefficients 0.961, 0.957, and 0.972, respectively.

Conclusions

We have successfully developed a method for automated striatal uptake analysis of FDOPA PET images. There was no significant difference between the SOR values obtained from this method and using manual analysis. Yet it is an unbiased time-saving and cost-effective program and easy to implement on a personal computer.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr. Shin-Yuan Chen and Ms. Li-Chuan Huang for providing the clinical information of PD patients and the MR imaging related parameters, respectively. This study was supported by a grant TCRD 99-27 from the Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, 97401, Taiwan

    I-Cheng Chang & Kun-Han Lue

  2. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital, Hualien, 97002, Taiwan

    Kun-Han Lue, Hung-Jen Hsieh & Shu-Hsin Liu

  3. Department of Radiopharmaceutical Production, Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital, Hualien, 97002, Taiwan

    Chih-Hao K. Kao

  4. Department of Radiological Technology, Tzu Chi College of Technology, Hualien, 97005, Taiwan

    Chih-Hao K. Kao

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  1. I-Cheng Chang
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  2. Kun-Han Lue
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  4. Shu-Hsin Liu
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  5. Chih-Hao K. Kao
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Correspondence to Chih-Hao K. Kao.

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Chang, IC., Lue, KH., Hsieh, HJ. et al. Automated striatal uptake analysis of 18F-FDOPA PET images applied to Parkinson’s disease patients. Ann Nucl Med 25, 796–803 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-011-0533-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-011-0533-8

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