Alzheimer’s Brain Protein Scanning Moves Forward
Written on July 13, 2011 by Jordan Ballard
Longer-lasting radioactive “tracers” used in the brain-scanning process could allow wider use of the imaging technique that, to date, has required costly equipment, according to two new studies funded by the manufacturers of the tracers.
PET scans, or brain scans, create images using the tracers, known as florbetapir and flutemetamol. Using the images, doctors diagnose the existence of beta-amyloids, the protein plaques in the brain linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
Before now, PET scans (positron emission tomography) could only be done in a facility that owned a cyclotron, a particle accelerator used to make radioactive material, because the tracer compound needed to do the scan did not last long enough to transport it.
The new imaging compounds last much longer, and once produced, can be transported and used in the scanning technology.
The two new studies are published online July 11 in .
In one study, conducted by Dr. Adam S. Fleisher at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix, Ariz., researchers compared brain images of 68 people with probable Alzheimer’s disease to 60 participants with mild cognitive, or memory, problems and 82 healthy volunteers. The participants were mostly in their early to mid-70s.
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