Progressive Supranuclear Palsy: Clinical Features and Neuroimaging in a Case Series

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a neurodegenerative disease with remarkable clinical diversity, lacks early and robust biomarkers to confirm the diagnosis in vivo. Given this, we analyzed magnetic resonance imaging studies in a series of patients admitted to a referral center after a comprehensive clinical examination. We had access to the complete clinical and radiologic data of 12 PSP patients. In all cases, initial symptoms included gait and speech abnormalities. A functional scale assessment was performed prior to visual assessment of neuroimaging studies and planimetric analysis. We found potentially useful neuroimaging-based indices derived from brainstem and ventricular measurements. When examining correlations between these indices and the most affected clinical domains of the disease, we observed that higher values in specific measurements involving the pons area and cerebellar peduncles were significantly correlated with more severe impairment in gait and speech in our case series.