Plaque detectors
April 16, 2012
A GLOBAL phase III clinical trial of
Bayer’s new drug florbetaben has
found that the drug can be used to
detect the beta-amyloid plaques in
the brain, which are known to be
hallmark signs of Alzheimer’s.
This discovery may in turn aid
doctors to diagnose Alzheimer’s
and start treating it earlier.
Currently, Alzheimer's can only be
definitively confirmed through the
detection of amyloid plaques and/
or tangles in the brain during
autopsy after death or with a brain
tissue biopsy, however the new
method uses the drug florbetaben
as a tracer during a PET scan of the
brain to visualise amyloid plaques
during life.
More than 200 people, who were
nearing death, including those with
suspected Alzheimer’s and those
without it, participated in the trial
which compared brain regions in
the PET scan to respective brain
regions after death during autopsy.
A total of 186 brain regions from
these donors were analysed during
the study, along with 60 brain
regions from healthy volunteers.
Based on these 246 brain regions
the study found florbetaben to
detect beta-amyloid with a sensitivity
of 77% and a specificity of 94%.
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