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

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 (<em>R</em>₁) 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 <em>R</em>₁and 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 <em>R</em>₁ than for ePIB. Further studies are needed to validate the use of <em>R</em>₁ as an alternative for FDG studies in clinical applications. The enclosed dataset refers to the work developed at the University Medical Center Groningen and consists of all the data retrieved from the PET images and from clinical assessment used in this work.在阿尔茨海默病（Alzheimer’s Disease, AD）的双示踪剂正电子发射断层扫描（positron emission tomography, PET）研究中，常采用2-[¹⁸F]-氟-2-脱氧-D-葡萄糖（2-[¹⁸F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose, FDG）与¹¹C标记的匹兹堡复合物B（¹¹C-labelled Pittsburgh Compound B, PIB）分别评估脑代谢与脑淀粉样β蛋白沉积。局部脑代谢与脑血流量（regional cerebral blood flow, rCBF）存在紧密耦联关系，二者均可作为神经元功能的评价指标。本研究对比了通过靶区与参考区示踪剂流入比值（R₁）估算的PIB衍生rCBF，以及早期PIB摄取（early-stage PIB uptake, ePIB）与FDG扫描的结果差异。本研究纳入15例PIB阳性（+）患者与15例PIB阴性（-）受试者，所有对象均接受FDG与PIB PET扫描，以评估R₁与ePIB作为FDG检测替代方法的可行性。首先基于PIB PET图像的视觉阅片对受试者进行分组分类；随后比较rCBF方法鉴别PIB阳性与阴性群体的性能，并与标准化局部FDG摄取量进行对比。分析结果显示各指标间存在显著正相关，提示PIB衍生的rCBF所提供的信息与FDG扫描结果密切相关，但不同方法的信号分布仍存在组间差异。此外，R₁与FDG的相关性优于ePIB。未来仍需开展进一步研究，以验证R₁作为临床场景中FDG研究替代方案的有效性。 本随附数据集对应格罗宁根大学医学中心开展的此项研究，包含本研究中从PET图像提取的全部数据以及临床评估相关数据。