Gender difference in the effect of uric acid on striatal dopamine in early Parkinson's disease.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
High uric acid (UA) levels have been shown to exert a neuroprotective effect in Parkinson's disease (PD) by inhibiting oxidative stress in the nigrostriatal pathway. However, the association between striatal dopamine activity and UA level has not been clarified.


METHODS
A total of 213 patients with early PD were enrolled. All patients underwent positron emission tomography using 18 F-N-(3-fluoropropyl)-2beta-carbon ethoxy-3beta-(4-iodophenyl) nortropane and a venous blood test for quantification of serum UA. All patients were stratified into either the lower UA group or the higher UA group using the median UA level. After normalizing the positron emission tomography images, differences in the regional standardized uptake value ratios (SUVRs) were analyzed with a volume-of-interest template. All tested SUVRs were also compared after categorizing patients by gender.


RESULTS
The UA affected dopamine transporter SUVRs in different ways by gender. In female patients, the higher UA level group showed a smaller reduction in dopamine transporter uptake in the posterior putamen, whereas there was no such association observed in male patients.


CONCLUSIONS
Higher UA levels were correlated with higher dopamine transporter uptake in the putamen in female patients with early PD. This finding suggests that UA has a neuroprotective effect, as demonstrated by the relatively preserved striatal dopamine activity in women.
['Oh|Y-S|YS|', 'Kim|J-S|JS|0000-0001-8087-7977', 'Yoo|S-W|SW|', 'Hwang|E-J|EJ|', 'Lyoo|C H|CH|', 'Lee|K-S|KS|']
D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D003342:Corpus Striatum D004298:Dopamine D050483:Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D018696:Neuroprotective Agents D010300:Parkinson Disease D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography D011699:Putamen D012727:Sex Characteristics D014527:Uric Acid
uric acid Parkinson's disease dopamine transporter uptake women