Role of Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Early Diagnosis and Characterization of Movement Disorders

Symptoms of movement disorders in early stages are similar, which makes definite diagnosis difficult. Hence this study was conducted to explore the role of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in enhancing the early diagnosis and characterization of movement disorders.

A cross-sectional study was conducted including 60 subjects. All of them were reviewed using conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and movement disorder DTI protocol. Commercially available software was used to produce fractional anisotropy (FA) maps. Post-processing 3D reconstruction was done to obtain tractograms. Both single and multiple regions of interest (ROIs) were selected for tractography in the pons, midbrain, substantia nigra (SN) and cerebellum. MRI and DTI images were interpreted and correlated with confirmatory diagnosis.

According to DTI diagnosis, out of the 30 cases, 28 had movement disorders. Among cases, 36.67% had Parkinson's disease (PD), 23.33% had progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), 16.67% had essential tremor, 13.33% had multi-system atrophy (MSA) C, and 3.33% had MSA P. DTI correctly classified all cases with PD and PSP. All cases with long disease duration and 88.24% of cases with short disease duration were also correctly classified. A statistically significant difference was observed in the proportion of diagnosis between DTI and conventional MRI.

DTI has high sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of movement disorders. It is capable of early diagnosis of movement disorders and also differentiating and subcategorizing them.