Do CSF levels of t-Tau, p-Tau and β₁₋₄₂ amyloid correlate with dopaminergic system impairment in patients with a clinical diagnosis of Parkinson disease? A ¹²³I-FP-CIT study in the early stages of the disease.

PURPOSE: To investigate the relationships among cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of t-Tau, p-Tau and Aβ₁₋₄₂ amyloid peptide and (123)I-FP-CIT uptake.
METHODS: The study included 58 subjects (31 men and 27 women, age 67 ± 9 years) with a clinical diagnosis of Parkinson disease diagnosed according to the United Kingdom Parkinson Disease Society Brain Bank criteria. All subjects underwent a CSF assay 28 ± 3 days before (123)I-FP-CIT SPECT scanning. The relationships were evaluated by means of linear regression analysis and Pearson correlation.
RESULTS: Striatal (123)I-FP-CIT was positively related to both t-Tau and p-Tau CSF values with low levels of t-Tau and p-Tau being related to a low uptake of (123)I-FP-CIT. In particular, differences with higher statistical significance were found for the striatum that is contralateral to theside mainly affected on clinical examination (P<0.001) [corrected].No significant relationships were found between Aβ₁₋₄₂ amyloid peptide and (123)I-FP-CIT binding.
CONCLUSION: The results of our study suggest that the presynaptic dopaminergic system is more involved in Parkinson disease patients with lower t-Tau and p-Tau CSF values while values of Aβ₁₋₄₂ amyloid peptide seems not to be related to nigrostriatal degeneration in our series.