Kanazawa, Masato, Shimohata, Takayoshi, Terajima, Kenshi, Onodera, Osamu, Tanaka, Keiko, Tsuji, Shoji, Okamoto, Kouichirou, and Nishizawa, Masatoyo
Byline: Masato Kanazawa (1), Takayoshi Shimohata (1), Kenshi Terajima (1), Osamu Onodera (2), Keiko Tanaka (1), Shoji Tsuji (3), Kouichirou Okamoto (4), Masatoyo Nishizawa (1) Keywords: multiple system atrophy; magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI); apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) Abstract: Abstract. In multiple system atrophy (MSA), symptoms associated with dysfunctions of the brainstem and autonomic nervous system are important prognostic factors. We investigated brainstem involvement in 12 patients with MSA with predominant cerebellar symptoms (MSA-C) (mean age, 56.3 +- 9.9 years, median disease duration, 3 years), and 11 controls (57.6 +- 12.0 years) matched for age using diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI). We demonstrated that apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) in the pons and middle cerebellar peduncle of MSA-C patients are significantly higher than those of normal controls even though the patients are in the early stage of the disease. Furthermore, we demonstrated that increased ADC values correlated well with the disease duration. The current study demonstrated that DWI is a useful noninvasive method for the quantitative evaluation of the brainstem involvement in MSA-C patients. Author Affiliation: (1) Dept. of Neurology, Brain Research Institute, Niigata University, 1 Asahimati, Niigata 951--8585, Japan (2) Dept. of Molecular Neuroscience, Brain Research Institute, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan (3) Dept. of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan (4) Dept. of Radiology, School of Medicine, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan Article History: Registration Date: 01/01/2004 Received Date: 01/09/2003 Accepted Date: 22/03/2004