Amyloid imaging in Alzheimer's disease: comparison of florbetapir and Pittsburgh compound-B positron emission tomography

Background Amyloid imaging provides in vivo detection of the fibrillar amyloid-beta (A beta) plaques of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The positron emission tomography (PET) ligand, Pittsburgh Compound-B (PiB-C11), is the most well studied amyloid imaging agent, but the short half-life of carbon-11 limits its clinical viability. Florbetapir-F18 recently demonstrated in vivo correlation with postmortem A beta histopathology, but has not been directly compared with PiB-C11. Methods Fourteen cognitively normal adults and 12 AD patients underwent PiB-C11 and florbetapir-F18 PET scans within a 28-day period. Results Both ligands displayed highly significant group discrimination and correlation of regional uptake. Conclusion These data support the hypothesis that florbetapir-F18 provides comparable information with PiB-C11.