Different subregional metabolism patterns in patients with cerebellar ataxia by 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography

We evaluated cerebellar subregional metabolic alterations in patients with cerebellar ataxia, a representative disease involving the spinocerebellum. We retrospectively analyzed 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET) images in 44 patients with multiple system atrophy of the cerebellar type (MSA-C), 9 patients with spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) type 2, and 14 patients with SCA type 6 and compared with 15 patients with crossed cerebellar diaschisis (CCD) and 89 normal controls. Cerebellar subregional metabolism was assessed using 13 cerebellar subregions (bilateral anterior lobes [ANT], superior/mid/inferior posterior lobes [SUPP/MIDP/INFP], dentate nucleus [DN], anterior vermis [ANTV], and superior/inferior posterior vermis [SUPV/INFV]) to determine FDG uptake ratios. MSA-C and SCA type 2 showed severely decreased metabolic ratios in all cerebellar subregions compared to normal controls (ANT, 0.58 ± 0.08 and 0.50 ± 0.06 vs. 0.82 ± 0.07, respectively, p p (Right, 0.81 ± 0.05 vs. 0.88 ± 0.04, p p = 0.003) and SCA type 6 (Right, 0.72 ± 0.05 vs. 0.88 ± 0.04, p 0.001; Left, 0.72 ± 0.05 vs. 0.88 ± 0.04, p p