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J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2009;80:998-1001 doi:10.1136/jnnp.2008.171496
  • Research paper

11C-PiB PET studies in typical sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease

  1. V L Villemagne1,2,
  2. C A McLean3,
  3. K Reardon4,
  4. A Boyd5,
  5. V Lewis5,
  6. G Klug5,
  7. G Jones1,
  8. D Baxendale1,
  9. C L Masters2,5,
  10. C C Rowe1,
  11. S J Collins2,3,5
  1. 1
    Department of Nuclear Medicine and Centre for PET, Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia
  2. 2
    The Mental Health Research Institute of Victoria, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
  3. 3
    Anatomical Pathology, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
  4. 4
    Department of Clinical Neurosciences, St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
  5. 5
    The Australian National CJD Registry, Department of Pathology, the University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr V L Villemagne, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Centre for PET, Austin Health, 145 Studley Road, Heidelberg, Vic. 3084, Australia; villemagne{at}petnm.unimelb.edu.au
  • Received 27 December 2008
  • Revised 4 March 2009
  • Accepted 6 March 2009

Abstract

Objective: Brain amyloid imaging using positron emission tomography (PET) is of increasing importance in the premortem evaluation of dementias, particularly in relation to Alzheimer disease (AD). The purpose of this study was to explore the premortem diagnostic utility of 11C-PiB PET in sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD).

Methods: Two patients, 72 and 59 years old, underwent evaluation for rapidly progressive cognitive decline, dying after illness durations of 5 and 7 months, respectively. As part of their comprehensive assessment, 18F-FDG PET and 11C-PiB PET studies were performed approximately 2–4 weeks prior to death, and the brain regional distributions compared with those from cohorts of healthy controls (HC) and AD patients.

Results: Routine investigations, including brain MRI scans, revealed changes typical of sporadic CJD, with the diagnosis confirmed at autopsy in both patients. The 18F-FDG PET showed global hypometabolism in one patient and thalamic and frontal hypometabolism with unexpected hypermetabolism in the dentate nuclei of the cerebellum in the other. Neither patient displayed cerebral cortical 11C-PiB PET retention above the levels observed in HC.

Conclusions: No grey-matter 11C-PiB retention was observed in two pathologically confirmed cases of typical sporadic CJD. We speculate that low PrP plaque density and small plaque size, as well as a relatively low affinity of the radioligand, explain the absence of 11C-PiB retention. More studies to validate this hypothesis are warranted.

Footnotes

  • Funding PET studies were supported in part by funds from the Austin Hospital Medical Research Foundation, Neurosciences Victoria and the University of Melbourne. The Australian National Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease Registry is funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.

  • Competing interests None.

  • Ethics approval Ethics approval was provided by the Austin Health Human Research Ethics Committee.

  • Patient consent Obtained from the patients’ families.

  • ▸ An additional figure is published online only at http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/vol80/issue9

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