Abstract: Objective  To preliminarily study the value of fluorine-18 deoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in the metabolic characteristics of various brain regions of new daily persistent headache (NDPH) patients. Methods  ¹⁸F-FDG PET images of patients with NDPH who underwent ¹⁸F-FDG PET examination at the  Department of Nuclear Medicine, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University from May 2021 to July 2023 were collected retrospectively. Cortex ID (GE Healthcare) was used to analyze the PET images and to obtain the Z-score distribution of 26 brain regions of  the NDPH patient group. The z-score distribution was applied to evaluate the metabolic characteristics of brain regions of NDPH patients.Results  NDPH patients showed reduced metabolism in multiple brain regions such as left/right prefrontal medial region（P=0.004、P=0.009）, right posterior cingulate （P=0.003）, right precuneus （P=0.003）, left sensorimotor（P=0.036）, right anterior cingulate（P=0.040）, left anterior cingulate（P=0.037）, left posterior cingulate （P=0.037）, right parietal superior （P=0.002）, left parietal superior（P=0.019）, left prefrontal lateral （P＜0.001）, left/right parietal inferior（P＜0.001）, left/right temporal mesial （P＜0.001 ）, right temporal lateral （P＜0.001）and pons（P＜0.001）. Conclusion  ¹⁸F-FDG PET can display metabolic characteristics in different brain regions of NDPH patients, which may provide metabolic information for the pathological mechanism of NDPH and its complications.

Key words: new daily persistent headache, chronic headache, positron emission tomography /computed tomography, ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose