Revised criteria for the diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) could compromise the diagnosis of Alzheimer disease (AD) dementia, according to an analysis published online Feb. 6 in Archives of Neurology.
The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) Biomarkers Consortium has released biomarker data from studies intended to improve the ability to diagnose and measure the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
The University of South Florida (USF) has opened the Center for Memory C.A.R.E. (Clinical Assessment, Research and Education), on the second floor of the six-story USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute, to support patients and their caregivers.
Ronald Petersen, MD, director of the Mayo Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, was selected to chair the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care and Services. The formation of the group was announced Aug. 23 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
NeuroLogica has received CE Mark approval for its portable inSPira HD SPECT camera.
18F-florbetaben had high sensitivity for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), clearly distinguished patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) from AD and provided results comparable to those reported with 11C-Pittsburgh Compound B in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, according to a study in the August issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
18F-FDG PET may provide a quantitative measure to detect progression from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer's disease (AD), and could offer a mechanism to streamline clinical trials, according to a study published in this month's Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
Individuals with deterministic genes in whom it is known that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) will develop appear to show differences in beta-amyloid distribution when compared with non-dominantly inherited AD patients, helping to consolidate evidence that PET and MRI can depict brain changes well before the arrival of AD-related symptoms, according to preliminary findings presented July 20 at the 2011 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Paris.
Known to be significantly more susceptible to dementia, individuals with Down syndrome appear to display age-related increases in amyloid senile plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles that mirror those increases in Alzheimer’s patients as viewed with PET, according to a study published in the June issue of Archives of Neurology.
The automated measurement of temporoparietal brain region volumes is a highly accurate predictor of memory loss in healthy elderly persons, indicating that these underlying characteristics could help clinicians identify likely cases of pre-clinical Alzheimer’s and enable them eventually to prevent the disease’s progression, according to an article published in the June issue of Radiology.
Written by C.P. Kaiser
Last year, the SNM received a $48,000 grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to develop comparative-effectiveness research (CER) of PET and other molecular imaging techniques. The primary emphasis is on the diagnosis and management of cancer patients, but both cardiology and neurology questions are being addressed. Far beyond the dollars, too, is a significant increase in intellectual capital being expended across the globe on the role of CER in molecular imaging.
For the first time in 27 years, the Alzheimer’s Association and the National Institute on Aging (NIA) have published new criteria for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, offering a general framework for early diagnosis but considering existing research unripe for definitive pre-clinical criteria.
Dynamic 11C-PiB PET can be used to measure cerebral beta-amyloid deposition in Down syndrome, according to a study published online March 14 in the Archives of Neurology.
Written by Manjula Puthenedam, PhD, & Mary C. Tierney, MS
FDG-PET is highly accurate in diagnosing progressive neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) even if cognitive dysfunction is only mild. Thus, novel brain imaging probes targeting, for instance, beta-amyloid will likely serve a different purpose. They will play an important role if beta-amyloid is confirmed as a molecular target of effective therapy, and drugs that target beta-amyloid are actually developed.
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