Reduced retention of Pittsburgh compound B in white matter lesions.

Publication Type	Academic Article
Authors	Glodzik L, Rusinek H, Li J, Zhou C, Tsui W, Mosconi L, Li Y, Osorio R, Williams S, Randall C, Spector N, McHugh P, Murray J, Pirraglia E, Vallabhajolusa S, de Leon M
Journal	Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging
Volume	42
Issue	1
Pagination	97-102
Date Published	10/21/2014
ISSN	1619-7089
Keywords	Aniline Compounds, Brain, Plaque, Amyloid, Radiopharmaceuticals, Thiazoles, White Matter
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.
DOI	10.1007/s00259-014-2897-1
PubMed ID	25331458
PubMed Central ID	PMC4415610