Relative cerebral flow from dynamic PIB scans as an alternative for FDG scans in Alzheimer's disease PET studies

PLoS One. 2019 Jan 17;14(1):e0211000. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211000. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

In Alzheimer's Disease (AD) dual-tracer positron emission tomography (PET) studies with 2-[18F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) and 11C-labelled Pittsburgh Compound B (PIB) are used to assess metabolism and cerebral amyloid-β deposition, respectively. Regional cerebral metabolism and blood flow (rCBF) are closely coupled, both providing an index for neuronal function. The present study compared PIB-derived rCBF, estimated by the ratio of tracer influx in target regions relative to reference region (R1) and early-stage PIB uptake (ePIB), to FDG scans. Fifteen PIB positive (+) patients and fifteen PIB negative (-) subjects underwent both FDG and PIB PET scans to assess the use of R1 and ePIB as a surrogate for FDG. First, subjects were classified based on visual inspection of the PIB PET images. Then, discriminative performance (PIB+ versus PIB-) of rCBF methods were compared to normalized regional FDG uptake. Strong positive correlations were found between analyses, suggesting that PIB-derived rCBF provides information that is closely related to what can be seen on FDG scans. Yet group related differences between method's distributions were seen as well. Also, a better correlation with FDG was found for R1 than for ePIB. Further studies are needed to validate the use of R1 as an alternative for FDG studies in clinical applications.

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Alzheimer Disease / diagnostic imaging*
  • Alzheimer Disease / physiopathology*
  • Aniline Compounds / pharmacokinetics
  • Brain / blood supply*
  • Brain / diagnostic imaging*
  • Brain / metabolism
  • Carbon Radioisotopes / pharmacokinetics
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Cerebrovascular Circulation / physiology*
  • Cognitive Dysfunction / diagnostic imaging
  • Cognitive Dysfunction / physiopathology
  • Female
  • Fluorine Radioisotopes / pharmacokinetics
  • Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 / pharmacokinetics
  • Glucose / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Positron-Emission Tomography / methods*
  • Positron-Emission Tomography / statistics & numerical data
  • Radiopharmaceuticals / pharmacokinetics
  • Thiazoles / pharmacokinetics

Substances

  • 2-(4'-(methylamino)phenyl)-6-hydroxybenzothiazole
  • Aniline Compounds
  • Carbon Radioisotopes
  • Carbon-11
  • Fluorine Radioisotopes
  • Radiopharmaceuticals
  • Thiazoles
  • Fluorodeoxyglucose F18
  • Fluorine-18
  • Glucose

Grants and funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.