Stereological evaluation of basal ganglia in Parkinson's disease [Parkinson hastali{dotless}ǧi{dotless}nda bazal ganglion ve substansiya nigranin stereolojik yöntemle deǧerlendirilmesi]

Objective: to evaluate whether the patients with parkinson disease (pd) show nucleus caudatus,nucleus lentiformis,and substantia nigra (sn) asymmetry and atrophy or not and intend to depict out the probable volumetric asymmetry by using the stereological technique. patients and methods: the study evaluated the volumetric measurements of each sn,nucleus caudatus and nucleus lentiformis. it included age and gender matched study and control groups of which were composed of twenty patients with pd and nineteen healthy subjects respectively. mr images were analyzed by using the point-counting approach holding the cavalieri's principle. results: there were no significant differences among the subjects with respect to age (pd subjects: 69.00±10.03 years,controls: 64.47±10.67 years,p=0.181). in pd and controls,there was significant difference between the volumes of left and right sn of pd patients and controls (p=0.026,p=0.005; respectively). there were no significant difference between the left and right nucleus caudatus (p=0.602,p=0.632; respectively) and nucleus lentiformis (p=0.832,p=0.473; respectively) of pd patients and controls. significant asymmetries were found between left and right sn,nucleus caudatus,and nucleus lentiformis volumes both for pd subjects (p=0.001,p<0.001,p=0.044; respectively) and controls (p<0.001,p=0.003,p<0.001; respectively). there was a negative correlation between right sn volume and unified parkinson's disease rating scale (updrs) score (r=-0.466,p=0.038). conclusion: there was a significant atrophy in sn between the pd patients and control subjects. the cavalieri theorem of systematic sampling in combination with point counting is found to be a reliable,simple,inexpensive and efficient method for estimating volumes in mri and can provide valuable information in evaluation of morphological changes of pd in vivo.