Project Details
Abstract
Dementia is a common neurodegenerative syndrome in aged population. Among
them Alzheimer’s disease (AD) represents the most common form of the degenerative
disease. One of the others is frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The characteristic
pathological findings in AD include presence of senile plaques and accumulation of
the neurofibrillary tangles (NFT). The pathognomonic change of diagnosis of AD is
-amyloid (Aβ) in senile plaques but the severity of AD is related with the
accumulation of NFT that contain tau protein. With recent advance of molecular
imaging of amyloid deposits, these amyloid β imaging agents have promised as a
potential biomarker for AD and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) patients.
Our previous study with brain 18F-florbetapir PET (18F-AV-45 PET) had revealed a
beneficial effect in the differentiation among patients with AD, aMCI and normal
control. In addition, the neuroimages study also showed that the amyloid depositis
could be very prominent in the early stage of aMCI patients. In our recent study with
brain 18F-AV-45 PET, a continuous increase of uptake of 18F-AV-45 in AD patients
remained unclear in a period of follow-up. Patients with FTD may contain several
different insoluble tau proteins including 3R tau or 4R tau. Clinically FTD is
heterogeneous and can be subclassified as behavioral variant (or frontal variant) and
primary progressive aphasia (or language variant). In a previous study, we found that
no uptake of amyloid deposition in FTD particularly in primary progressive aphasia.
Recently a new imaging tracer, 18F-THK-5351, targeting on PHF-tau has been
developed for PET scan. The 18F-THK-5351 PET scan is a sensitive target tracer in
the identification and progression of tau protein in AD patients. Therefore we include
the tau protein images in this 3-year longitudinal follow-up study for AD and FTD
patients. Approximately 150 patinets with 40 aMCI, 30 mild AD, 30 moderate AD,
and 20 FTD as well as 30 normal healthy controls will be recruited in this study.
Totally 4 scans with 2 18F-THK 5351 PET and 2 18F-AV-45 PET scans will be
performed within 3 years. Our prospective aims with this new image tracers are to
understand the diagnosis, disease progression, and prognosis of AD and FTD patients.
With these two neuroimages tracers of 18F-AV-45 and 18F-THK-5351, we will
correlate the clinical features and the deposits of amyloid and tau protein in aMCI,
AD and FTD patients.
Project IDs
Project ID:PC10608-1819
External Project ID:MOST106-2314-B182-036
External Project ID:MOST106-2314-B182-036
Status | Finished |
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Effective start/end date | 01/08/17 → 31/07/18 |
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