A good agreement was found between pFBB and FDG data as obtained by subjective visual and quantitative analyses. Dual-point FBB PET scans could offer complementary information (similar to that from FDG PET and FBB PET) in a single procedure, considering pFBB as a surrogate of FDG.

We propose to perform periodic diagnostic TBS to improve Tg specificity, at least while neck thyroid activity is detected, even if Tg is negative.

To evaluate the use of amyloid-positron emission tomography (PET) in routine clinical practice, in a selected population with cognitive impairment that meets appropriate use criteria (AUC). A multicenter, observational, prospective case-series study of 211patients from 2 level-3 hospitals who fulfilled clinical AUC for amyloid-PET scan in a naturalistic setting. Certainty degree was evaluated using a 5-point Likert scale: 0 (very low probability); 1 (low probability); 2 (intermediate probability); 3 (high probability); and 4 (practically sure), before and after amyloid PET. The treatment plan was considered as cognition-specific or noncognition-specific. Amyloid-PET was positive in 118 patients (55.9%) and negative in 93 patients (44.1%). Diagnostic prescan confidence according amyloid-PET results showed that in both, negative and positive-PET subgroup, the most frequent category was intermediate probability (45.7% and 55.1%, respectively). After the amyloid-PET, the diagnostic confidence showed a very different distribution, that was, in the negative-PET group the most frequent categories are very unlikely (70.7%) and unlikely (29.3%), while in the positive-PET group were very probable (57.6%) and practically sure (39%). Only in 14/211 patients (6.6%) the result of the amyloid-PET did not influence the diagnostic confidence, while in 194 patients (93.4%), the diagnostic confidence improved significantly after amyloid-PET results. The therapeutic intention was modified in 93 patients (44.1%). Specific treatment for Alzheimer disease was started, before amyloid-PET, in 80 patients (37.9%). This naturalistic study provides evidence that the implementation of amyloid-PET is associated with a significant improvement in diagnostic confidence and has a high impact on the therapeutic management of patients with mild cognitive impairment fulfilled clinical AUC.

Several studies have recently suggested that amyloid Positron Emission Tomography (PET) data acquired immediately after the radiotracer injection provide information related to the brain metabolism, similar to that contained in 18 F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET neuroimages. If corroborated, it would allow us to acquire information about brain injury and potential brain amyloid deposits in a single examination, using a dual-point protocol. In this work we assess the equivalence between early 18 F-Florbetaben (FBB) PET and 18 F-FDG PET data using multivariate approaches based on machine learning. In addition, we propose several systems based on data fusion that take advantage of the additional information provided by dual-point amyloid PET examinations. The proposed systems perform an initial dimensionality reduction of the data using a partial-least-square-based algorithm and then combine early and standard PET acquisitions using two approaches: multiple kernel learning (intermediate fusion) or an ensemble of two Support Vector Machine classifiers (late fusion). The proposed approaches were evaluated and compared with other fusion techniques using data from 43 subjects with cognitive impairments. They achieved a good trade-off between sensitivity and specificity and higher accuracy rates than systems based on single-modality approaches such as standard 18 F-FBB PET data or 18 F-FDG PET neuroimages.

We present a case of a 60-year-old man with a history of severe hypoproteinemia and constitutional syndrome, suspected to have protein-losing enteropathy (PLE). Bone scintigraphy ((99m)Tc-MDP) performed to rule out the presence of bone metastases incidentally showed abnormal uptake in abdominal soft tissue. The patient unexpectedly died of heart failure, and autopsy revealed microscopic alterations consistent with PLE exclusively in the right colon, corresponding to the area of abnormal uptake. Few similar cases have been published, but none of them reported correlative pathological findings affecting the area of abnormal tracer uptake. In this case of PLE, (99m)Tc-MDP scintigraphy was a useful imaging method for localizing the site of protein loss, showing a focal area of alteration in the right colon. This finding could also have been of great help in case that surgery had been finally performed to control the protein loss.