In vivo 18F-flortaucipir PET does not accurately support the staging of progressive supranuclear palsy
Publication: Journal of Nuclear Medicine
Maura Malpetti, Sanne S Kaalund, Kamen A Tsvetanov, Timothy Rittman, Mayen Briggs, Kieren Allinson, Luca Passamonti, Negin Holland, P Simon Jones, Tim D Fryer, Young T Hong, Antonina Kouli, Richard Bevan-Jones, Elijah Mak, George Savulich, Maria Grazia Spillantini, Franklin Aigbirhio, Caroline H Williams-Gray, John T O’Brien and James B Rowe
18 November 2021
Summary
Progressive brain diseases like dementia and Parkinson’s disease move through stages. A new system to stage the dementia-parkinsonian disease known as Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) has been developed in 2020. In 2021, researchers validated the new scheme at the Cambridge Brain Bank, looking at the disease severity at the end of life. Researchers wanted to know how the disease progresses and to stop it.
Researchers used a PET scan with a chemical “dye” called 18F-flortaucipi to measure PSP. Despite high hopes for PET using this dye to measure the burden of PSP, when the study began, the results of the study are clear – it does not support the staging of disease, either in lifetime or in terms of outcomes of the illness. 18F-Flortaucipir PET is successfully used in other diseases, like Alzheimer’s, but it cannot be used for PSP staging.
