ArticleBrain and behavior2021
Clinical MR imaging in Parkinson's disease: How useful is the swallow tail sign?
Article in Brain and behavior, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Is the Swallow Tail Sign a Useful Imaging Biomarker in Clinical Neurology? A Systematic Review.Movement disorders clinical practice · 2025Pooled it
- The swallow tail sign: mechanisms, neuroimaging advances and future perspectives.Insights into imaging · 2026Article
- [MRI in neurodegenerative Parkinsonian syndromes].Radiologie (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- Limited predictive value of preoperative nigrosome integrity for motor outcomes in Parkinson's disease deep brain stimulation.NPJ Parkinson's disease · 2025Article
- Automatic substantia nigra segmentation with Swin-Unet in susceptibility- and T2-weighted imaging: application to Parkinson disease diagnosis.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2024Article
- Characterization of cortical volume and whole-brain functional connectivity in Parkinson's disease patients: a MRI study combined with physiological aging brain changes.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Increased iron in the substantia nigra pars compacta identifies patients with early Parkinson'sdisease: A 3T and 7T MRI study.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2024Article
- Neuroimaging Techniques in Differentiating Parkinson's Disease from Drug-Induced Parkinsonism: A Comprehensive Review.Clinics and practice · 2023Review
- Radiomics and Hybrid Models Based on Machine Learning to Predict Levodopa-Induced Dyskinesia of Parkinson's Disease in the First 6 Years of Levodopa Treatment.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies of Neurodegenerative Disease: From Methods to Translational Research.Neuroscience bulletin · 2023Review
- Iron- and Neuromelanin-Weighted Neuroimaging to Study Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Patients with Parkinson's Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Clinical MR imaging in Parkinson's disease: How useful is the swallow tail sign?Brain and behavior · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundWith conventional MRI, no Parkinson's disease (PD)-specific abnormalities can be detected. However, there is a critical need for accompanying neuroimaging markers to guide the diagnosis. With high-resolution susceptibility-weighted MRI (SWI) sequences, the imaging of nigrosome-1 (N1) is possible. The so-called swallow tail sign (STS) has been proposed as a suitable neuroimaging marker for the diagnosis of PD.
objectivesTo investigate whether the absence of the STS can be applied for distinguishing PD patients from healthy controls (HCs).
methodsSWI images of 44 PD patients and 50 age- and gender-matched HCs were investigated using a 3T MRI scanner. Two trained neuroradiologists blind-rated the images and evaluated whether the STS was absent (1) on one side or (2) both sides of the participant's midbrain.
resultsOur results confirmed good interrater reliability comparable to previously published studies. However, we did not identify any group differences between PD patients and HCs. Measures of diagnostic values revealed overall poor diagnostic performance.
conclusionsEven though previously stated, our study does not confirm the potential use of the STS as a supportive neuroimaging marker for PD in a clinical setting. In conclusion, there is a critical need for improvements in N1-targeted MRI sequences and the development of advanced segmentation algorithms.
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