Visual assessment of dorsolateral nigral hyperintensity on high-field SWI scans may serve as a new simple diagnostic imaging marker for neurodegenerative parkinsonian disorders.
We were able to demonstrate that brainstem-derived MR planimetric measures yield high diagnostic accuracy for the discrimination of PSP from related disorders when decision tree algorithms are applied, even at early, clinically uncertain stages. However, their diagnostic accuracy in discriminating PD and MSA was suboptimal.
Background: The Movement Disorder Society Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) is a newly developed tool to assess Parkinson's disease (PD). Changes in scores on the scale over the course of PD, including increasing disease duration and Hoehn and Yahr (HY) stages, have not been described. The objectives of this study were to analyze MDS-UPDRS scores on Parts I through IV and their differences based on HY stage and disease duration in a large cohort of patients with PD. Methods: For this cross-sectional study, demographic data and MDS-UPDRS scores were collected, including HY stage. Subscores on MDS-UPDRS Parts I through IV were analyzed using 1-way analyses of variance for each HY stage and in 5-year increments of disease duration. Part III (motor assessment) scores were analyzed separately for on and off states. Results: The mean age of the 3206 patients was 65.8 AE 10.6 years, 53.3% were men, the mean disease duration was 11.5 AE 4.6 years, and the median HY stage was 2 (range, 0-5); 2156 patients were examined in
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