Differential Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease with Pet

in Journal of Nuclear Medicine : Official Publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine (1994), 35(3), 391-8

PET studies have demonstrated bilateral temporo-parietal hypoperfusion and hypometabolism in probable and definite Alzheimer's disease (AD), a pattern that may help differentiate AD from other dementias ... [more ▼]

PET studies have demonstrated bilateral temporo-parietal hypoperfusion and hypometabolism in probable and definite Alzheimer's disease (AD), a pattern that may help differentiate AD from other dementias. METHODS: To evaluate the diagnostic power of cerebral metabolic distribution patterns for "cortical" degenerative dementias, PET scans obtained from 129 patients referred for differential diagnosis of dementia were analyzed visually. RESULTS: Sixty-five patients had a final clinical diagnosis of probable AD. Ninety-seven percent (97%) of those had abnormal metabolic scans and 94% showed a suggestive pattern of bilateral or unilateral temporo-parietal hypometabolism (with or without frontal involvement). Hypometabolism was unilateral in 23% of patients. Five subjects with a neuropathologically proven diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease had a suggestive metabolic pattern. One of those was an early case with frontal hypometabolism exceeding temporo-parietal involvement. Two patients with Alzheimer's-type dementia had isolated bilateral frontal hypometabolism. CONCLUSIONS: This alternative metabolic pattern may correspond to a non-Alzheimer pathology occurring in 10%-20% of patients suffering from clinically probable Alzheimer's disease. Most of the patients with possible but atypical Alzheimer's-type dementia showed isolated bilateral frontal involvement. This metabolic pattern probably corresponds to different diseases, such as Pick's disease, frontal lobe dementia or progressive subcortical gliosis. [less ▲]

No-Carrier-Added Regioselective Preparation of 6-[18f]Fluoro-L-Dopa

in Journal of Nuclear Medicine : Official Publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine (1990), 31(7), 1247-51

This paper describes the preparation of 6-[18F]fluoro-L-dopa by a no-carrier-added method based on the nucleophilic displacement of nitro groups of two commercially available substrates, 3,4-dimethoxy-2 ... [more ▼]

This paper describes the preparation of 6-[18F]fluoro-L-dopa by a no-carrier-added method based on the nucleophilic displacement of nitro groups of two commercially available substrates, 3,4-dimethoxy-2-nitrobenzaldehyde (nitroveratraldehyde) and 6-nitropiperonal. Fluorination was conducted in DMSO with fluorine-18 (18F) in the presence of the aminopolyether Kryptofix 222 and potassium carbonate. The condensation of the fluorinated aldehydes with phenyloxazolone and the subsequent hydrolysis with HI/P yield, after purification by HPLC, only the 6-(D, L) isomers. The racemic mixture (50/50) was resolved on an analytical scale chiral column. The method, which requires 100 min (EOB) to complete, produces 6-[18F]fluoro-L-dopa with a decay-corrected radiochemical yield of 10%, an enantiomeric purity greater than 99%, and a specific activity of 1.2 Ci/mumole. [less ▲]