SVHM’s PET Department is proud to be able to perform 18F-FP-CIT studies with the support of Cyclotek, who has been making this tracer available to our patients since 2022.
18F-FP-CIT is a PET radiopharmaceutical used to help diagnose Idiopathic Parkinson’s Disease (IPD), the most common form of Parkinsonism, a motor syndrome that causes rigidity, tremors and slowness of movement. 18F-FP-CIT can be used to differentiate IPD from other forms of Parksonism, such as degenerative parkinsonism (DP).
18F-FP-CIT uptake reflects presynaptic dopamine transporter density, which has high sensitivity and specificity for differentiating IPD from DP. This distinction is important to guide treatment and provide prognostic information, and is particularly valuable in the early stages of the disease when the clinical signs and symptoms of the different forms of Parkinsonism are very similar.
Pictured below, the image on the left is a normal 18F-FP-CIT study, with normal uptake of the radiopharmaceutical seen throughout the basal ganglia. The image on the right is an abnormal study which demonstrates reduced uptake throughout the putamen, more so in the posterior aspect on the left side consistent with IDP.
For more information about SVHM’s PET service, please contact Chief Nuclear Medicine Technologist, Mareeka Bruns, via email at mareeka.bruns@svha.org.au. Alternatively, please call PET reception on (03) 9231 3071.
