Is the cingulate island sign a marker for early dementia conversion in Parkinson's disease?

To investigate whether the cingulate island sign (CIS) ratio (i.e., the ratio of regional uptake in the posterior cingulate cortex relative to the precuneus and cuneus on cerebral perfusion scans) is associated with early dementia conversion in Parkinson's disease (PD).

We enrolled 226 patients with newly diagnosed PD and 48 healthy controls who underwent dual-phase ¹⁸ F-FP-CIT PET scans. Patients with PD were classified into three groups according to the CIS ratio on early-phase ¹⁸ F-FP-CIT PET images: a PD group with CIS or high CIS ratios (PD-CIS; n = 96), a PD group with inverse CIS or low CIS ratios (PD-iCIS; n = 40), and a PD group consisting of the remaining patients with normal CIS ratios (PD-nCIS; n = 90). We compared the risk of dementia conversion within a 5-year time point between the groups.

There were no significant differences in age, sex, education, or baseline cognitive function between the PD groups. The PD-CIS group had higher Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) motor scores and more severely decreased dopamine transporter availability in the putamen. The PD-iCIS group had a smaller hippocampal volume compared with the other groups. The risk of dementia conversion in the PD-CIS group did not differ from that in the PD-iCIS and PD-nCIS groups. Meanwhile, the PD-iCIS group had a higher risk of dementia conversion than the PD-nCIS group.

The results of this study suggest that inverse CIS, rather than CIS, is relevant to early dementia conversion in patients with PD.