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Imaging β-amyloid using [18F]flutemetamol positron emission tomography: from dosimetry to clinical diagnosis

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Abstract

In Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the deposition of β-amyloid (Aβ) is hypothesized to result in a series of secondary neurodegenerative processes, leading ultimately to synaptic dysfunction and neuronal loss. Since the advent of the first Aβ-specific positron emission tomography (PET) ligand, 11C-Pittsburgh compound B ([11C]PIB), several 18F ligands have been developed that circumvent the limitations of [11C]PIB tied to its short half-life. To date, three such compounds have been approved for clinical use by the US and European regulatory bodies, including [18F]AV-45 ([18F]florbetapir; Amyvid™), [18F]-BAY94-9172 ([18F]florbetaben; Neuraceq™) and [18F]3′-F-PIB ([18F]flutemetamol; Vizamyl™). The present review aims to summarize and discuss the currently available knowledge on [18F]flutemetamol PET. As the 18F analogue of [11C]PIB, [18F]flutemetamol may be of use in the differentiation of AD from related neurodegenerative disorders and may help with subject selection and measurement of target engagement in the context of clinical trials testing anti-amyloid therapeutics. We will also discuss its potential use in non-AD amyloidopathies.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Section of Nuclear Medicine and PET, Department of Surgical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

      Kerstin Heurling & Mark Lubberink

    2. Department NVS, Centre for Alzheimer Research, Division of Translational Alzheimer Neurobiology, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden

      Antoine Leuzy & Agneta Nordberg

    3. Brain Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (BraIns), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Porto Alegre, Brazil

      Eduardo R. Zimmer

    4. Department of Biochemistry, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil

      Eduardo R. Zimmer

    5. Department of Geriatric Medicine, Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden

      Agneta Nordberg

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    1. Kerstin Heurling
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    Correspondence to Kerstin Heurling.

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    KH is a former employee at GE Healthcare (Uppsala, Sweden). AL, ERZ, ML and AN declare no competing interests.

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    Kerstin Heurling and Antoine Leuzy contributed equally to this work.

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    Heurling, K., Leuzy, A., Zimmer, E.R. et al. Imaging β-amyloid using [18F]flutemetamol positron emission tomography: from dosimetry to clinical diagnosis. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 43, 362–373 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-015-3208-1

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