Comparison of Deuterium Metabolic Imaging and FDG-PET in Alzheimer’s Disease

Motivation: Distinguishing Alzheimer’s Disease form other dementias is becoming increasingly important with the development of amyloid-targeting therapies. This requires extensive clinical and paraclinical work-up, often including structural and molecular brain imaging. Goal(s): To compare deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) with routinely used clinical imaging technologies for the detection of Alzheimer’s Disease. Approach: We performed a prospective clinical trial of 5 healthy age-matched controls compared with 10 patients Alzheimer’s dementia. Results: Deuterium metabolic imaging showed decreased metabolism in temporal and parietal brain regions in patients with Alzheimer’s disease compared with healthy controls. This hypometabolic pattern correlated well with FDG-PET. Impact: This preliminary study suggests that metabolic imaging in suspected dementia may be performed with DMI. This would allow simultaneous imaging of structural, vascular, and metabolic changes at a cost comparable to FDG-PET.