Investigating ioflupane I123 injection and single photon emission tomography as an imaging biomarker for long-term sequelae following mild traumatic brain injury

ABSTRACTObjective: To determine whether there were differences in clinical outcomes for ioflupane I123 injection (DaTscan) and single photon emission tomography consistent with early Parkinson’s disease (PD) among individuals with a history of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI).Methods: We performed a case-control study among patients presenting to the Emergency Room (ER) during 2006–2013 with mTBI (cases, n = 34) or without mTBI (controls, n = 33). We performed clinical and imaging measurements in cases and controls at least 1-year post-presentation to the ER (average three years four months).Results: All DaTscans obtained were qualitatively normal. There were no qualitative DaTscan differences between cases and controls. There was, however, a significant increase in caudate asymmetry in controls versus cases (p = 0.02), but this finding was no longer significant after correction for multiple comparisons. There was a suggestion of a trend of poorer clinical score test measures among those with mTBI, alth...