• Tetsuya Hashimoto, Chiaki Yokota, Kazuhiro Koshino, Takashi Temma, Makoto Yamazaki, Satoshi Iguchi, Ryo Shimomura, Toshiyuki Uehara, Naoko Funatsu, Tenyu Hino, Kazuo Minematsu, Hidehiro Iida, and Kazunori Toyoda.
• Department of Cerebrovascular medicine, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, 5-7-1 Fujishiro-dai, Suita, Osaka, 565-8565, Japan.
• Ann Nucl Med. 2017 Apr 1; 31 (3): 227-234.

Objective11C-Pittsburgh compound-B (11C-PIB) positron emission tomography (PET) is used to visualize and quantify amyloid deposition in the brain cortex in pathological conditions such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). Intense 11C-PIB retention is also observed in the white matter (WM) of both healthy individuals and AD patients. However, the clinical implications of this retention in brain WM have not been clarified. We investigated the relationship between the extent of white matter lesions (WMLs) and the binding potential of 11C-PIB (BPND) in the WM in patients with hypertensive small vessel disease. We further examined the relationship between the extent of WMLs and BPND in WML and in normal-appearing white matter (NAWM).MethodsTwenty-one hypertensive vasculopathy patients, without AD and major cerebral arterial stenosis and/or occlusion, were enrolled (9 women, 68 ± 7 years). Regions of WML and NAWM were extracted using magnetization-prepared rapid gradient-echo and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery of magnetic resonance images. Volumes of interest (VOIs) were set in the cortex-subcortex, basal ganglia, and centrum semiovale (CS). BPND in the cortex-subcortex, basal ganglia, CS, WML, and NAWM were estimated on 11C-PIB PET using Logan graphical analysis with cerebellar regions as references. The relationships between WML volume and BPND in each region were examined by linear regression analysis.ResultsBPND was higher in the CS and basal ganglia than in the cortex-subcortex regions. WML volume had a significant inverse correlation with BPND in the CS (Slope = -0.0042, R 2  = 0.44, P < 0.01). For intra WM comparison, BPND in NAWM was significantly higher than that in WML. In addition, although there were no correlations between WML volume and BPND in WML, WML volume was significantly correlated inversely with BPND in NAWM (Slope = -0.0017, R 2  = 0.26, P = 0.02).Conclusions11C-PIB could be a marker of not only cortical amyloid-β deposition but also WM injury accompanying the development of WMLs in hypertensive small vessel disease.

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