A 54-year-old woman presented to our hospital with progressive motor weakness of the right arm. She had a medical history of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and hypothyroidism. Magnetic resonance imaging indicated a watershed infarction of the left hemisphere. Cervical echogram indicated severe stenosis of the internal carotid artery (ICA) without wall thickening. Cerebral angiography indica...

INTRODUCTION The aim of the present study was to determine the brain areas associated with fibromyalgia, and whether pretreatment regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) can predict response to gabapentin treatment. METHODS A total of 29 women with fibromyalgia and 10 healthy women (without pain) matched for age were finally enrolled in the study. Technetium-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer single phot...

An 88-year-old woman presented with hemiballism of abrupt onset that mainly affected her left leg. Brain computed tomography revealed a hemorrhage at the right subthalamic nucleus (Picture 1). An easy Z-score imaging system analysis of single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) using Tc-ethyl cysteinate dimer revealed hyperperfusion at the right motor cortex corresponding to the leg and...

BACKGROUND Neuropsychiatric side effects of oseltamivir occur occasionally, especially in infants and young patients, but nothing is known about possible contributory factors. CASE PRESENTATION We report a case of a 15-year-old Japanese female with influenza infection who developed abnormal psychiatric symptoms after administration of standard doses of oseltamivir. She had no history of neuro...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE To determine the association of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype and longitudinal changes of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Previous reports have yielded conflicting results concerning this association. METHODS A retrospective cohort study was performed. rCBF was noninvasively measured using 99mTc-ethyl cysteinate dimer single-photo...

PURPOSE Several reports have suggested that multilingualism has a protective effect against semantic dementia. Here, we provide further evidence for this effect. CASE REPORTS FIRST The patient was a 75-year-old right-handed Taiwanese woman who had retired after working as a tailor. She was able to speak Taiwanese, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese fluently until 5 years ago. She gradually develop...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE It is unclear from recent clinical trials whether thrombolytic agents are capable of facilitating reperfusion and metabolic recovery over time or whether a beneficial effect is counteracted by an increase in the risk of brain hemorrhage. We studied the effect of thrombolytic treatment on metabolic recovery after reperfusion and clinical outcome. METHODS Patients were pr...

OBJECTIVE The effect of acupuncture (ACP) on regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) is unclear. Single-photon emission computed tomography studies on three patients with dystonia were performed before and after ACP treatment to test the contention that ACP affects rCBF. METHODS Pre-ACP and post-ACP CBF study were performed on the same day; 99mTc ethyl cysteinate dimer was injected for each study...

With the prospect of disease-modifying drugs that will target the physiopathological process of Alzheimer's disease, it is now crucial to increase the understanding of the atypical focal presentations of Alzheimer's disease, such as posterior cortical atrophy. This study aimed to (i) characterize the brain perfusion profile in posterior cortical atrophy using regions of interest and a voxel-bas...

Background and Purpose—Extracorporeal rheopheresis is a safe method to optimize hemorheology. Our aim was to determine whether treatment with extracorporeal rheopheresis in patients with acute ischemic hemispheric stroke improves cerebral perfusion as assessed with serial Tc–ethyl-cysteinate-dimer single-photon emission CT (TcECD SPECT). We also investigated how clinical outcome is associated w...