Masterclass: Amyloid PET for Management and Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease

The theory and practice of PET imaging modalities are critical in research, diagnosis and management of Alzheimer’s Disease – the most common form of dementia, the second leading cause of death in Australia.

The University of Melbourne and National Imaging Facility are pleased to present the recording of the Amyloid PET for management and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease workshop, led by world-class experts to provide the opportunity to gain practical skills with relevant PET imaging techniques.

Speakers

Rob Williams

University of Melbourne Facility Fellow

Prof Christopher Rowe

Australian Dementia Network

Dr Katie Davey

University of Melbourne Informatics Fellow

This workshop covers the following topics:

  • How to acquire an amyloid beta PET image for gauging Alzheimer’s pathology
  • How to reconstruct the image
  • How to summarise the image using the Centiloid scale
  • How to visually read and interpret the image

Prof Chris Rowe: Foundations of PET in Alzheimer’s disease and case discussion

Prof Christopher Rowe is a neurologist and nuclear medicine specialist at Austin Health and a Professor of the University of Melbourne. He is the Director of the Australian Dementia Network (ADNeT), a national collaboration of 19 universities and research institutes. His research focus is PET brain imaging and blood biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease, to advance understanding of the disease, translate recent advancements in diagnostics into clinical practice, and to facilitate prevention and treatment trials. He has over 450 publications and is a Highly Cited researcher, in the top 1% world-wide for neuroscience.

Prof Rowe’s presentation highlights the different tracers available for PET imaging of amyloid beta, an indicator of Alzheimer’s pathology, and explains the Centiloid scale, a 100 point metric used to indicate a patient’s amyloid beta burden, associated with their cognitive decline. In this session, audience members are taught how to visually read PET images generated using a range of tracers, acquired from patients experiencing various neurological conditions, at different points in the trajectory of their degenerative illness.

Mr Rob Williams: Technical considerations for amyloid PET

Mr Rob Williams is Facility Fellow of the National Imaging Facility at the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Brain Centre Imaging Unit. His research interests include Amyloid and Tau quantification, and new harmonisation approaches for improved PET quantification in multi-site clinical trials.

This session covers the technical considerations of PET imaging when used in Alzheimer’s pathology, highlighting scanner hardwares available for acquiring images, and software available to reconstruct raw data. Images comprised of many voxels can be converted to a single Centiloid number using a quantitative algorithm, and Mr Williams examines the differences in how a Centiloid is reported in various software packages. He also discusses the differences between quantitative Centiloid measurements and traditional visual readings.

Dr Katie Davey: Image reconstruction and generating a Centiloid score

Dr Katie Davey is an Informatics Fellow of the National Imaging Facility and Senior Lecturer at the University of Melbourne, conducting research into enhancing the acquisition and analyses of neuroimaging data, with a special interest in signal processing and AI.

In this session, Dr Davey reviews the process by which raw data from the PET scanner is reconstructed into an image. Dr Davey explains the impact of an image’s spatial resolution on the Centiloid scale and the impact of reconstruction parameters on an image’s spatial resolution.

This event is hosted by the University of Melbourne, National Imaging Facility, Australian Dementia Network, The Florey and Austin Health, and sponsored by Lilly.

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