PET/MRI reveals separate Alzheimer ’s biomarkers in single scan

A PET radiotracer for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease may also be used to measure vascular brain changes in patients during PET/MRI scans, according to a study published December 7 in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. The finding suggests that hybrid PET/MRI can provide a more comprehensive picture of brain pathology involved in cognitive decline, noted first author Ates Fettahoglu, an undergraduate researcher at Stanford University in Stanford, CA, and colleagues. “Two important biomarkers may be measured in a single session in participants with memory concerns, enabling improved characterization of dementia pathophysiology with reduced cost and inconvenience to participants and their caregivers,” the group wrote. Both amyloid plaque brain deposits and changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF) are key components of Alzheimer’s disease, with amyloid PET scans and MRI typically used separately to detect changes in these biomarkers in patients. While PET imaging with oxygen-15 (O-15) water radiotracer is the gold standard in molecular imaging for quantifying CBF, the use of this tracer is limited mostly to research settings due to its short half-life of two minutes, according to the researchers. Moreover, previous work has suggested that “relative” CBF (flow between brain regions) can be measured with early-frame PET using F-18 amyloid tracers with half-lives of 110 minutes, the group noted. Still, obtaining measurement in absolute units (exactly how much blood is flo...
Source: AuntMinnie.com Headlines - Category: Radiology Authors: Tags: Molecular Imaging Subspecialties Neuroradiology Source Type: news