Abstract
Purpose
One of the interesting features of the amyloid tracer Pittsburgh compound B (PiB) is that it generates a signal in the white matter (WM) in both healthy subjects and cognitively impaired individuals. This characteristic gave rise to the possibility that PiB could be used to trace WM pathology. In a group of cognitively healthy elderly we examined PiB retention in normal-appearing WM (NAWM) and WM lesions (WML), one of the most common brain pathologies in aging.
Methods
We segmented WML and NAWM on fluid attenuation inversion recovery (FLAIR) images of 73 subjects (age 61.9 ± 10.0, 71 % women). PiB PET images were corrected for partial volume effects and coregistered to FLAIR images and WM masks. WML and NAWM PiB signals were then extracted.
Results
PiB retention in WML was lower than in NAWM (p < 0.001, 14.6 % reduction). This was true both for periventricular WML (p < 0.001, 17.8 % reduction) and deep WML (p = 0.001, 7.5 % reduction).
Conclusion
PiB binding in WM is influenced by the presence of WML, which lower the signal. Our findings add to the growing evidence that PiB can depict WM pathology and should prompt further investigations into PiB binding targets in WM.
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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge funding support for the study from NIA grants 2R01AG013616-22, R01-AG035137, RC2-AG036502, P30 AG008051 and HL111724-01.
Conflicts of interest
Drs. Mosconi, Tsui, and de Leon have a patent on a technology that was licensed to Abiant Imaging Inc. by NYU and, as such, have a financial interest in this license agreement and hold stock and stock options on the company. Drs. Mosconi, and de Leon have received compensation for consulting services from Abiant Imaging.
The other authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
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Glodzik, L., Rusinek, H., Li, J. et al. Reduced retention of Pittsburgh compound B in white matter lesions. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 42, 97–102 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-014-2897-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-014-2897-1