PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Hesse, Swen
AU  - Stengler, Katarina
AU  - Regenthal, Ralf
AU  - Patt, Marianne
AU  - Becker, Georg-Alexander
AU  - Luthardt, Julia
AU  - Knuepfer, Heike
AU  - Hegerl, Ulrich
AU  - Sabri, Osama
TI  - The relationship of serotonin transporter (SERT) availability and age of onset in untreated patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
DP  - 2009 May 01
TA  - Journal of Nuclear Medicine
PG  - 82--82
VI  - 50
IP  - supplement 2
4099  - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/50/supplement_2/82.short
4100  - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/50/supplement_2/82.full
SO  - J Nucl Med2009 May 01; 50
AB  - 82 Objectives Differences of the results of brain SERT studies in OCD might be due to distinct phenotypes, i.e. the age of onset. We investigate SERT availability with PET and C-11-DASB in relation to the age of onset. Methods Seventeen untreated OCD patients (37±9yrs, 8 females) and 11 age-and gender-matched healthy controls (HC) underwent dynamic PET after IV injection of 570 MBq C-11-DASB. Distribution volume ratios (DVR) images were generated using MRTM2 (Ichise et al. 2003). VOI analysis was performed after co-registration of the DVR maps with individual MRI. Severity of OCD was rated by the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (YBOCS). Results Age had a significant effect on DVR across the brain regions in patients (r=-0.713, p=0.001 in the insula, r=-0.473, p=0.055 in the left dorsolateral frontal/DLF cortex) but not in HC. There was a negative relationship between DVR and age of onset (e.g. left thalamus r=-0.467, p=0.044, age-corrected) with significant lower values in the LO-OCD compared with EO-OCD. DVR of EO-OCD patients did not differ from HC. Lower than normal DVR were found in LO-OCD in any brain region (p=0.003 in the hippocampus/amygdale, p<0.001 in the striatum and the thalamus). YBOCS and DVR were correlated in the right DLF (r=0.504, p=0.028) and the left medial frontal cortex (0.473, 0.041). Conclusions Late but not early onset of OCD is associated with abnormal low SERT availability. With increasing age, SERT availability showed a pronounced decline in OCD compared with HC.