OBJECTIVES: 6-fluoro-[¹⁸F]-L-DOPA (FDOPA) is an amino acid positron emission tomography (PET) tracer for detecting loss of functional dopaminergic neuron terminals in the striatum of brain. The aims of this assessment was to determine the safety and effectiveness of ¹⁸F-FDOPA positron emission tomography/positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET/PET-CT) in patients who suspected Parkinson disease performing the systematic review and meta-analysis

METHODS: We performed to determine the safety and effectiveness of the technique for distinguishing between patients with and those without PD. The safety was assessed based on the existing literature on the effective dose of this technique. A literature search was conducted using five domestic databases, including KoreaMed, and overseas databases, including Ovid-MEDLINE, Ovid-EMBASE, and Cochrane Library. The literature search generated 1,575 articles, and after excluding duplicate searches, 1,046 articles were reviewed based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of fifteen articles were selected for the assessment. Additionally, we reviewed two medical textbook and two guidelines for examining the clinical utility of this technique. MetaDTA (Diagnostic Test Accuracy Meta-Analysis v2.01) program used for meta-analysis of diagnostic performance.

RESULTS: According to the text books and guidelines, ¹⁸F-FDOPA PET scan can be used for diagnosis of PD. In the case of safety, the effective dose of ¹⁸F-FDOPA PET(0.03 mSv/MBq) and fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET(0.019 mSv/MBq) are similar according to the previous reports, and there was no test-related adverse event in one study. A total of fifteen studies(diagnostic accuracy studies) included for systematic review. And four articles of them met the criteria for diagnostic meta-analysis. For differential diagnostic performance, pooled sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio were 0.982, 0.941 and 870.418.

CONCLUSIONS: 18F-FDOPA PET/PET-CT was evaluated to be a safety and effectiveness for differentiating between patients with PD and non PD. Also, this technique is one of the useful dopaminergic imaging tests for Parkinson disease.