Background: To date, the clinical significance of visually equivocal amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) has not been well established.
Objective: We studied the clinical significance of equivocal amyloid PET images from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI).
Methods: Subjects with F-18 florbetapir PET scans at baseline who were followed up for 4 years were selected. Clinical characteristics, imaging biomarkers, cognitive function, and rate of conversion to AD were compared in subjects with visually equivocal findings.
Results: Of 249 subjects who completed the follow-up, 153 (61.4%), 20 (8.0%), and 129 (30.5%) were F-18 florbetapir-negative, -equivocal, and -positive, respectively. The mean standardized uptake value ratios (SUVR) of F-18 florbetapir PET were 0.75 ± 0.04, 0.85 ± 0.10, and 1.00 ± 0.09 for each group (p <0.001 between groups), and 15.0%, 70.0%, and 98.7% of patients were quantitatively above the positive threshold. The change in the SUVR of F-18 florbetapir PET was higher in the equivocal (6.09 ± 3.61%, p <0.001) and positive (3.13 ± 4.38%, p <0.001) groups than the negative group (0.88 ± 4.28%). Among the subjects with normal or subjective memory impairment and mild cognitive impairment, 5.3% with negative amyloid PET and 37.5% with positive amyloid PET converted to AD over the 4-year period. None of the equivocal amyloid PET subjects converted to AD during this period.
Conclusion: Approximately 8% of subjects from the ADNI cohort showed visually equivocal amyloid PET scans with intermediate load and rapid accumulation of amyloid, but did not convert to AD during the 4-year follow-up.
Keywords: Alzheimer disease; Amyloid; Cognitive dysfunction; Positron-emission tomography.
© Korean Society of Nuclear Medicine 2021.