Validation of 18F–FDG-PET Single-Subject Optimized SPM Procedure with Different PET Scanners

Abstract

F-fluoro-deoxy-glucosePositron Emission Tomography (FDG-PET) allows early identification of neurodegeneration in dementia. The use of an optimized method based on the SPM software package highly improves diagnostic accuracy. However, the impact of different scanners for data acquisition on the SPM results and the effects of different pools of healthy subjects on the statistical comparison have not been investigated yet.Images from 144 AD patients acquired using six different PET scanners were analysed with an optimized singlesubject SPM procedure to identify the typical AD hypometabolism pattern at single subject level. We compared between-scanners differences on the SPM outcomes in a factorial design. Single-subject SPM comparison analyses were also performed against a different group of healthy controls from the ADNI initiative. The concordance between the two analyses (112 vs. 157 control subjects) was tested using Dice scores. In addition,we applied the optimized single-subject SPM procedure to the FDG-PET data acquired with 3 different scanners in 57 MCI subjects, in order to assess for tomograph influence in early disease phase. All the patients showed comparable AD-like hypometabolic patterns, also in the prodromal phase, in spite of being acquired with different PET scanners. SPM statistical c omparisons performed with the two different healthy control databases showed a high degree of concordance (76% average pattern volume overlap and 90% voxel-wise agreement in AD-related brain structures). The validated optimized SPM-based single-subject procedure is influenced neither by the scanners used for image acquisition, nor by differences in healthy control groups, thus implying a great reliability of this method for longitudinal and multicentre studies.

FDG-PET and CSF biomarker accuracy in prediction of conversion to different dementias in a large multicentre MCI cohort

“…Image analysis was centralized and performed at San Raffaele Hospital (Milan) according to a voxel-based Statistical Parametrical Mapping (SPM) procedure at the single-subject level previously validated in dementias ( Della Rosa et al, 2014 ; Perani et al, 2014a , Perani et al, 2016 ). Notably, since this voxel-based SPM procedure provided optimal reliability with different scanners ( Presotto et al, 2017 ), it was equally applied to these multicentre FDG-PET data.…”

A Cross-Validation of FDG- and Amyloid-PET Biomarkers in Mild Cognitive Impairment for the Risk Prediction to Dementia due to Alzheimer’s Disease in a Clinical Setting

“…Only clusters containing more than 100 voxels were deemed to be significant. This method has been shown to be valid, accurate and reliable in detecting AD metabolic signature independently from the PET scanner used for image acquisition [30].…”

Factors affecting the harmonization of disease‐related metabolic brain pattern expression quantification in [18F]FDG‐PET (PETMETPAT)

“…Validated univariate voxel-wise analysis methods such as statistical parametric mapping (SPM) have the advantage of being able to identify disease-related metabolic brain patterns at the single-subject level [31] , [32] , [33] , [34] , [35] , [36] , [37] . In addition, one study has suggested that SPM may be robust enough to withstand scanner and HC group differences between centers, a result which needs to be reproduced and explored on a pan-European scale [38] .…”