Hi Laura, Soccertese, and Harley too,

In the UK Datscan is not used routinely, though some hospitals may use it more than others. It is mostly used when clinical diagnosis is unclear. This is a problematic area, because once a person is treated, especially with ldopa, that changes the initial observations. In other words, the patient presents differently. This can cloud the diagnostic process. Tough on the neuro, but even tougher on the patient, especially the one who does not exhibit a classic tremor. At my hospital there was no headlong rush to use Datscan, it took a while. One of the reasons it is expensive is that the injectable they give you has to be specially prepared and has a very short life.

I do not think that it will replace good clinical observation. It is just another tool to help. Even Harley's scan results do not prove anything, except that her parkinson is not what is often called IPD. What it does do is confirm her own thoughts about her condition, and provide her and her doctors with a better picture of what is going on. I agree with everything she says about the idiopathic word - it doesn't describe what parkinson is or is not, it only tells you that it is an unknown. It is also a pretty ugly sounding word that people could reinterpret any way they wanted, and might lead to negative connotations, regardless of it's true meaning. It could easily be dropped if there was a more flexible 'spectrum' approach, where we were assessed and placed at a point on a lateral scale, and the place on the scale could be refined or adjusted as both our MDS/neuro and ourself got better at understanding the way we present. It is also a practical, cost effective way to determine who would need to have a datcan; those who veered too far away to easily diagnose would be identified.