Utility of the 18F-Florbetapir positron emission tomography in systemic amyloidosis

Amyloidosis comprises a group of heterogeneous conditions. To ascertain the burden of disease is important because it can determine the treatment as well as the evolution of the disease. Recent reports have shown good results in diagnosing cardiac amyloidosis using F-18-florbetapir. We hypothesize that combining whole body PET/CT with F-18-Florbetapir can be useful to characterize the burden of the disease. We included 25 patients, 13 of them with different types of amyloidosis, and 12 with Alzheimer's disease as controls. Target-to-background ratio was computed for multiple organ using maximum standardized uptake values. Organ involvement was described (standardized techniques versus PET) according to different kinds of amyloidosis showing promising results in AA and AL types. Heart involvement showed poorer results when compared to tongue, lung or thyroid gland. Multiple organ involvement in patients previously labelled as having negative organ affectation could be identified. This is the first study to evaluate the utility of F-18-florbetapir in the assessment of the global extension of disease. Our results show that this technique is useful for its diagnosis.