Correlation of florbetaben PET imaging and the amyloid peptide Aβ42 in cerebrospinal fluid

Today, the use of biomarkers such as amyloid-specific positron emission tomography (PET) tracers and information derived from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) can support the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) as an indicator for the presence of amyloid pathology. We here show that the PET signal of the F-18-labelled tracer florbetaben (NeuraCeq (TM)), that binds to amyloid-beta plaques, inversely correlates with CSF levels of A beta 42, another biomarker for AD. Results from the two biomarkers were concordant in 35 out of 38 subjects. In 7 AD subjects (20%) at least one biomarker was inconsistent with the clinical diagnosis. This confirms known limitations of the clinical AD diagnosis and highlights the potential of biomarker-assisted diagnosis to improve accuracy.