Quantitative Analysis on Cerebral Blood Flow of Patients with Early Syphilis

Objective To investigate the cerebral blood flow of patients with early syphilis.Methods 99 Tcm-ECD as brain perfusion imaging agent was used in single photon emission computed tomography(SPECT) for 28 early syphilis patients whose disease course was shorter than 1 year and 26 controls. Visual analyses and quantitative analyses were made on every SPECT image.Results According to visual analyses,twenty-six of the 28 early syphilis patients had general, patchy hypoperfusion of cerebral blood flow.Twenty-one of the 26 patients had 45 episodes of marked patchy hypoperfusion of rCBF.The responsible areas of hypoperfusion in a patchy distribution involved the left frontal lobe ③,right frontal lobe ②,left parietal lobe ⑤,right parietal lobe ④,left temporal lobe ⑦,right temporal lobe ⑥,left occipital lobe ⑥,right occipital lobe ⑤,left basal ganglia ②,cerebellum ②,thalamus ① and nerve nuceus ②.Comparing with the controls,rCBF in frontal lobe,parietal lobe and temporal lobe decreased markedly(P0.01) in early syphilis patients.rCBF in occipital lobe,basal ganglia,cerebellum, thalamus and nerve nuceus decreased (P0.05) in early syphilis patients. No abnormality was found in the control group.Conclusion Cerebral blood flow abnormalities exist in patients with early syphilis. General patchy hypoperfusion on SPECT imaging is common.