A method of semi-quantifying β-AP in brain PET-CT 11C-PiB images

Biomed Mater Eng. 2014;24(1):1367-73. doi: 10.3233/BME-130940.

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a common health problem for elderly populations. Positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT)11C-PiB for beta-P (amyloid-β peptide, β-AP) imaging is an advanced method to diagnose AD in early stage. However, in practice radiologists lack a standardized value to semi-quantify β-AP. This paper proposes such a standardized value: SVβ-AP. This standardized value measures the mean ratio between the dimension of β-AP areas in PET and CT images. A computer aided diagnosis approach is also proposed to achieve SVβ-AP. A simulation experiment was carried out to pre-test the technical feasibility of the CAD approach and SVβ-AP. The experiment results showed that it is technically feasible.

Keywords: 11C-PiB; Alzheimer's Disease (AD); Beta-Amyloid Peptide; Positron Emission Tomography (PET); Standardized Uptake Values (SUVs).

MeSH terms

  • Alzheimer Disease / diagnostic imaging*
  • Amyloid beta-Peptides / chemistry*
  • Aniline Compounds
  • Benzothiazoles
  • Brain / diagnostic imaging*
  • Carbon Radioisotopes / chemistry
  • Computer Simulation
  • Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Positron-Emission Tomography
  • Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted
  • Radiopharmaceuticals / chemistry
  • Reference Standards
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Thiazoles
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Substances

  • 2-(4'-(methylamino)phenyl)-6-hydroxybenzothiazole
  • Amyloid beta-Peptides
  • Aniline Compounds
  • Benzothiazoles
  • Carbon Radioisotopes
  • Radiopharmaceuticals
  • Thiazoles