Kinetics and 28-day test–retest repeatability and reproducibility of [ <sup>11</sup> C]UCB-J PET brain imaging
Hayel Tuncel, Ronald Boellaard, Emma M. Coomans, Erik F. J. de Vries, Andor W.J.M. Glaudemans, Paula Kopschina Feltes, David Vállez García, Sander C.J. Verfaillie, Emma E. Wolters, Steven Sweeney, J. Michael Ryan, Magnus Ivarsson, Berkley A. Lynch, Patrick Schober, Philip Scheltens, Robert C. Schuit, Albert D. Windhorst, Peter Paul De Deyn, Bart N.M. van Berckel, Sandeep S.V. Golla
Abstract
[ 11 C]UCB-J is a novel radioligand that binds to synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2A (SV2A). The main objective of this study was to determine the 28-day test–retest repeatability (TRT) of quantitative [ 11 C]UCB-J brain positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients and healthy controls (HCs). Nine HCs and eight AD patients underwent two 60 min dynamic [ 11 C]UCB-J PET scans with arterial sampling with an interval of 28 days. The optimal tracer kinetic model was assessed using the Akaike criteria (AIC). Micro-/macro-parameters such as tracer delivery (K 1 ) and volume of distribution (V T ) were estimated using the optimal model. Data were also analysed for simplified reference tissue model (SRTM) with centrum semi-ovale (white matter) as reference region. Based on AIC, both 1T2k_V B and 2T4k_V B described the [ 11 C]UCB-J kinetics equally well. Analysis showed that whole-brain grey matter TRT for V T , DVR and SRTM BP ND were –2.2% ± 8.5, 0.4% ± 12.0 and –8.0% ± 10.2, averaged over all subjects. [ 11 C]UCB-J kinetics can be well described by a 1T2k_V B model, and a 60 min scan duration was sufficient to obtain reliable estimates for both plasma input and reference tissue models. TRT for V T , DVR and BP ND was <15% (1SD) averaged over all subjects and indicates adequate quantitative repeatability of [ 11 C]UCB-J PET.