Comparative examination of the pons and corpus callosum as reference regions for quantitative evaluation in positron emission tomography imaging for Alzheimer's disease using 11C-Pittsburgh Compound-B

ObjectivesStandardised uptake value ratio (SUVR) is usually obtained by dividing the SUV of the region of interest (ROI) by that of the cerebellar cortex. Cerebellar cortex is not a valid reference in cases where amyloid beta deposition or lesions are present. Only few studies have evaluated the use of other regions as references. We compared the validity of the pons and corpus callosum as reference regions for the quantitative evaluation of brain positron emission tomography (PET) using C-11-PiB compared to the cerebellar cortex.MethodsWe retrospectively evaluated data from 86 subjects with or without Alzheimer's disease (AD). All subjects underwent magnetic resonance imaging, PET imaging, and cognitive function testing. For the quantitative analysis, three-dimensional ROIs were automatically placed, and SUV and SUVR were obtained. We compared these values between AD and healthy control (HC) groups.ResultsSUVR data obtained using the pons and corpus callosum as reference regions strongly correlated with that using the cerebellar cortex. The sensitivity and specificity were high when either the pons or corpus callosum was used as the reference region. However, the SUV values of the corpus callosum were different between AD and HC (p < 0.01).ConclusionsOur data suggest that the pons and corpus callosum might be valid reference regions.

Automated summary

This study compared the validity of the pons and corpus callosum as reference regions for the quantitative evaluation of brain positron emission tomography. The results showed that using either the pons or corpus callosum as reference regions yielded similar results to using the cerebellar cortex, with high sensitivity and specificity.