engleski

Nuclei Raphe Lesion in Depressed and Suicidal Patients Recorded on Transcranial Sonography

Purpose: Depletion of serotonin and dopamine system is a frequent finding in the depressive state and deficient levels of serotonin are associated with suicide and depression. Recent transcranial sonography (TCS) studies showed that disruption of echogenic midbrain line might represent functional marker for the development of depression. We initiated this study to asses the usefulness of TCS recording in a group of major depressed patients (MDD) and in MDD patients with suicidal ideation, on the assumption that TCS might serve as a screening method for differentiating patients at risk of suicide. Material & Methods: Thirty six patients with MDD (DSM-IV) of whom 16 were suicidal and 30 controls where studied using TCS. Examination was performed by standardized semiquantitative protocol. Results: Reduced raphe echogenicity was found in 23 of 36 (64%) of the patients with MDD but only in 3 (10%) controls. 13 of 16 (81%) suicidal patients exhibit same reduced echogenicity, what was also in negative correlation with the severity of the illness cc 5 20.569, p 5 0.003. No correlation was found between raphe echogenicity and number of depressive episodes, age, gender or duration of the disease. (p , 0.05). Conclusion: Our results showed that alteration of RN is a frequent TCS finding in depressive states. That finding is rare in healthy subjects, however, in suicidal patients such alteration was even more pronounced. These data suggest that TCS might be a novel method for the detection of depressive disorders and might record patients with suicidal risk within.

ultrasound; depression

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