Development and clinical validation of CT-based regional modified Centiloid method for amyloid PET

BACKGROUND: The standard Centiloid (CL) method was proposed to harmonize and quantify global (18)F-labeled amyloid beta (Aβ) PET ligands using MRI as an anatomical reference. However, there is need for harmonizing and quantifying regional Aβ uptakes between ligands using CT as an anatomical reference. In the present study, we developed and validated a CT-based regional direct comparison of (18)F-florbetaben (FBB) and (18)F-flutemetamol (FMM) Centiloid (rdcCL). METHODS: For development of MRI-based or CT-based rdcCLs, the cohort consisted of 63 subjects (20 young controls (YC) and 18 old controls (OC), and 25 participants with Alzheimer’s disease dementia (ADD)). We performed a direct comparison of the FMM-FBB rdcCL method using MRI and CT images to define a common target region and the six regional VOIs of frontal, temporal, parietal, posterior cingulate, occipital, and striatal regions. Global and regional rdcCL scales were compared between MRI-based and CT-based methods. For clinical validation, the cohort consisted of 2245 subjects (627 CN, 933 MCI, and 685 ADD). RESULTS: Both MRI-based and CT-based rdcCL scales showed that FMM and FBB were highly correlated with each other, globally and regionally (R(2) = 0.96~0.99). Both FMM and FBB showed that CT-based rdcCL scales were highly correlated with MRI-based rdcCL scales (R(2) = 0.97~0.99). Regarding the absolute difference of rdcCLs between FMM and FBB, the CT-based method was not different from the MRI-based method, globally or regionally (p value = 0.07~0.95). In our clinical validation study, the global negative group showed that the regional positive subgroup had worse neuropsychological performance than the regional negative subgroup (p < 0.05). The global positive group also showed that the striatal positive subgroup had worse neuropsychological performance than the striatal negative subgroup (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that it is feasible to convert regional FMM or FBB rdcSUVR values into rdcCL scales without additional MRI scans. This allows a more easily accessible method for researchers that can be applicable to a variety of different conditions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13195-022-01099-0.