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European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging

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01-02-2020 | Alzheimer's Disease | Editorial

Suboptimal validity of amyloid imaging-based diagnosis and management of Alzheimer’s disease: why it is time to abandon the approach

Authors: Abass Alavi, Jorge R. Barrio, Thomas J. Werner, Mohsen Khosravi, Andrew Newberg, Poul Flemming Høilund-Carlsen

Published in: European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging | Issue 2/2020

Excerpt

The broken limits to life expectancy observed in the last few decades have imposed an increasing medical, social and financial burden on society [1], as a result of the growing incidence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other neurological diseases. The introduction of modern imaging techniques in the 1970s and 1980s has provided powerful approaches to detect and characterize these disorders by visualizing changes at the structural and molecular levels in the brain [2, 3]. By now it is well understood that biochemical changes precede anatomical abnormalities in neurological diseases [4]. Thus, diseases like AD cannot be visualized in their earlier stages by structural imaging techniques such as computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In patients with proven AD, by the time structural abnormalities such as ventricular enlargement and cortical atrophy are detected by CT or MRI, the disease process has reached advanced stages and therefore will be already associated with significant cognitive impairment [5]. …

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Title: Suboptimal validity of amyloid imaging-based diagnosis and management of Alzheimer’s disease: why it is time to abandon the approach
Authors: Abass Alavi
Jorge R. Barrio
Thomas J. Werner
Mohsen Khosravi
Andrew Newberg
Poul Flemming Høilund-Carlsen
Publication date: 01-02-2020
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Keywords: Alzheimer's Disease
Positron Emission Tomography
Alzheimer's Disease
Mild Cognitive Impairment
Published in: European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging / Issue 2/2020
Print ISSN: 1619-7070
Electronic ISSN: 1619-7089
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-019-04564-5

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