PET With Novel Tracers Foretells Early Alzheimer's Risk

Two studies published in JAMA Neurology found novel positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracers exhibited increased uptake in key regions of the brain that could predict risk of early onset Alzheimer's disease, reports AuntMinnie . The use of PET with the tracer flortaucipir, which binds to amyloid and tau-based neurofibrillary tangles, was analyzed in the first study , while PET plus flutemetamol was used to predict which subjects might develop Alzheimer's disease in the short term in the second study . In the first study, greater flortaucipir uptake was observed in the inferior temporal and medial temporal regions of the brain in subjects with subcortical vascular cognitive impairment than in normal controls. In the second study, flutemetamol-PET scans revealed positive beta-amyloid results for 98 individuals while 134 were negative. Three years later, 81 subjects received a diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's disease, while 52 of those with positive baseline PET scans received the same diagnosis and 29 with negative initial PET scans had a similar progression to probable Alzheimer's disease.