Patients with scans without evidence of dopaminergic deficit (SWEDD) do not have early Parkinson’s disease: Analysis of the PPMI data

BACKGROUND: To evaluate whether patients with scans without evidence of dopaminergic deficit (SWEDD) have early Parkinson’s disease (PD). METHODS: The clinical characteristics, striatal specific binding ratios (SBRs), and the indices of I-123 FP-CIT SPECT images of 50 SWEDD patients, 304 PD patients, and 141 healthy controls were acquired from the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) data and evaluated during a 2-year clinical follow-up period. RESULTS: Of the 50 subjects with SWEDD, PD was confirmed in 13 subjects (the PD-SWEDD group), while the remaining 37 subjects had other diseases (the Other-SWEDD group). Striatal SBR values and striatal asymmetry indices of the PD group were significantly different with those of the PD-SWEDD and Other-SWEDD groups at both baseline and after 2 years (p < 0.001). Putaminal SBR values of the PD-SWEDD group were significantly decreased after 2 years (p < 0.05). There was no difference of the SBR values between baseline and after 2 years in the Other-SWEDD group. A baseline MDS-UPDRS III score matched comparison of the PD and PD-SWEDD group was done due to the large difference of the subject numbers. Striatal SBR values and striatal asymmetry indices were significantly different (p < 0.001) between the two groups at both baseline and after 2 years, but there were no significant difference with respect to the MDS-UPDRS III scores after 2 years between the two groups. CONCLUSION: The different SBR values and asymmetry indices between the PD and PD-SWEDD groups at baseline and after 2 years indicate that SWEDD may not be early PD, but rather a different disease entity.