Dear Molecular Imaging Insider,
This issue of the Molecular Imaging Insider offers the first exclusive look at a new study by Dutch researchers, which adds evidence that PET imaging with carbon-11-labeled Pittsburgh Compound B (PiB) and FDG can lead to early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and differentiate between specific dementias, especially when previous diagnostic certainty is low.
The study, from VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, found that PiB and FDG-PET improved the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's patients and clinicians' confidence in their diagnoses in the setting of the memory clinic. Read more about this research by clicking here.
The early detection of Alzheimer's disease also appears to be getting a boost from PET imaging with the radiopharmaceutical florbetapir. The combination shows much promise among patients with mild or no cognitive impairment.
A study by researchers at Duke University Medical Center found that PET with florbetapir could help disclose the presence of amyloid plaque during an 18-month follow-up, which may predict future decline in cognitive skills among this population. The findings could also help guide care and treatment decisions for patients with Alzheimer's disease.
In other novel research, MRI-based motion correction in simultaneous PET/MRI exams can significantly improve lesion contrast, signal-to-noise ratio, and image quality, compared with respiratory gating and no motion correction, according to a study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston.
Researchers at MGH believe they have not only confirmed the improvement in PET image quality in phantom and animal studies, but that their results also lay the foundation for the technique to be used effectively in simultaneous whole-body PET/MRI human studies.
Back in the clinical realm, using PET/CT to image progesterone-receptor (PR) status may help identify response to endocrine therapy at an early stage and determine the most appropriate treatment for breast cancer patients.
Researchers from the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University in St. Louis are using PET to identify the target for endocrine therapy in breast cancer patients by demonstrating estrogen-receptor (ER) presence with F-18 fluoroestradiol (FES) PET or by monitoring for hormone-induced changes in tumor metabolism with FDG-PET once therapy has begun.
And, researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have developed a new 4D PET reconstruction method to improve cardiac PET image resolution by compensating for both respiratory and cardiac motion.
Fully compatible with current imaging protocols, the method also reduces the noise level of cardiac-gated PET images by using all the PET data to reconstruct every cardiac-gated image.
Until next time, be sure to stay in touch with the Molecular Imaging Digital Community on a daily basis to be informed on the latest news and research.
