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Amyloid PET Imaging

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Molecular Imaging of Neurodegenerative Disorders

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Abstract

Amyloid imaging represents a noninvasive molecular imaging procedure allowing in vivo assessment and quantification of amyloid plaque pathology in the brain. Amyloid plaque pathology is considered one major neuropathological hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. Consequently, a negative amyloid scan is not consistent with the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in patients with cognitive decline/dementia. However, other forms of neurodegenerative disorders cannot be excluded. On the other hand, a positive amyloid scan alone is not sufficient to establish the diagnosis of dementia of the Alzheimer type but only confirms the presence of amyloid pathology and needs to be integrated together with additional clinical/biomarker information for a conclusive diagnosis. In patients with objective cognitive decline such as “mild cognitive impairment,” a positive amyloid scan is associated with a greater risk of conversion to manifest dementia of the Alzheimer’s type. Amyloid imaging allows to identify cases with atypical Alzheimer’s disease and to exclude cases clinically appearing like Alzheimer’s disease while based on different non-Alzheimer neuropathologies.

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Acknowledgments

Content of this article in part derived from previous publications/book chapters including “PET and SPECT Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases” in “Molecular Imaging, Principles and Practice, 2nd edition” Editors: Brian Ross, Sanjiv Gambhir as well as “Update Amyloid-Bildgebung in der Diagnostik der Neurodegeneration” in Angewandte Nuklearmedizin 2022, © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart, New York.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany

    Alexander Drzezga & Kathrin Giehl

  2. German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn-Cologne, Germany

    Alexander Drzezga

  3. Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-2), Molecular Organization of the Brain, Jülich, Germany

    Alexander Drzezga & Kathrin Giehl

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  1. Alexander Drzezga
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  2. Kathrin Giehl
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Correspondence to Alexander Drzezga .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Donna J. Cross

  2. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Hospital das Forças Armadas (HFA), Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil

    Karina Mosci

  3. Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Satoshi Minoshima

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Drzezga, A., Giehl, K. (2023). Amyloid PET Imaging. In: Cross, D.J., Mosci, K., Minoshima, S. (eds) Molecular Imaging of Neurodegenerative Disorders. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35098-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35098-6_5

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