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Comparison of the diagnostic performance of FDG-PET and VBM-MRI in very mild Alzheimer’s disease

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European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract.

Purpose

The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic performance of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the same group of patients with very mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Methods

Thirty patients with very mild AD (age 67.0±5.8 years; MMSE score 25.5±1.2, range 24–28), 32 patients with mild AD (age 67.0±4.5 years, MMSE score 22.1±0.8, range 21–23) and 60 age- and sex-matched normal volunteers underwent both FDG-PET and three-dimensional spoiled gradient echo MRI. Statistical parametric mapping was used to conduct voxel by voxel analysis and Z score mapping. First, the region of interest (ROI) maps of significant reductions in glucose metabolism and grey matter density in the mild AD patients were defined. Secondly, analysis of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for Z scores in the ROI maps discriminating very mild AD patients and normal controls was performed.

Results

In mild AD patients, FDG-PET indicated significant reductions in glucose metabolism in the bilateral posterior cingulate gyri and the right parietotemporal area, while VBM analysis showed a significant decrease in grey matter volume density in the bilateral amygdala/hippocampus complex, compared with the normal control group. ROC analysis showed that in very mild AD patients the accuracy of FDG-PET diagnosis was 89% and that of VBM-MRI diagnosis was 83%. The accuracy of the combination of FDG-PET and VBM-MRI diagnosis was 94%.

Conclusion

In very mild AD, both FDG-PET and VBM-MRI had high accuracy for diagnosis, but FDG-PET showed slightly higher accuracy than VBM-MRI. Combination of the two techniques will yield a higher diagnostic accuracy in very mild AD by making full use of functional and morphological images.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Neuroimaging Research,, HIABCD, Himeji, Hyogo, Japan

    Takashi Kawachi, Kazunari Ishii, Setsu Sakamoto, Masahiro Sasaki & Tetsuya Mori

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine,, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan

    Takashi Kawachi

  3. Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Hyogo Brain and Heart Center, 520 Saisho-Ko,, Himeji, Hyogo, 670-0981, Japan

    Kazunari Ishii & Tetsuya Mori

  4. Department of Radiology, National Center Hospital for Mental, Nervous and Muscular Disorders, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry,, Kodaira, Tokyo, Japan

    Fumio Yamashita & Hiroshi Matsuda

  5. Institute for Aging Brain and Cognitive Disorders, Hyogo Brain and Heart Center,, Himeji, Hyogo, Japan

    Etsuro Mori

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  1. Takashi Kawachi
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  2. Kazunari Ishii
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Correspondence to Kazunari Ishii.

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Kawachi, T., Ishii, K., Sakamoto, S. et al. Comparison of the diagnostic performance of FDG-PET and VBM-MRI in very mild Alzheimer’s disease. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 33, 801–809 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-005-0050-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-005-0050-x

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