Intérêt de la scintigraphie des transporteurs de la dopamine en gériatrie

Available in France since September 2001, scintigraphy of dopamine transporters can be used to assess loss of dopaminergic striatal innervation. The initial marketing approval was clearly designed around motor diseases and it was not until 2006 that a new indication was retained to allow the differential diagnosis between Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer dementia, thus broadening the field of application of this neuroimaging technique. This review of the literature presents a brief description of the scintigraphic technique itself and discusses the contribution of this diagnostic tool in various disease states seen in geriatrics.