Potential barriers to timely Alzheimer's disease diagnosis and treatment: Tracer delivery and patient travel to amyloid PET scanners in the United States

Several disease-modifying Alzheimer's disease treatments are available or in clinical trials. Participation in these trials and access to approved treatments often require amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) scans. Amyloid PET requires a radioactive tracer with a short half-life so PET scanner must be near a cyclotron facility that produces and delivers viable tracers. We examined the size and composition of the US population that faces likely geographic obstacles due to travel time constraints. Our estimate that 1.5 million older Americans would drive more than one hour to a qualifying PET site raises concern for differences in access to memory care.