Comparison of early F-18 Florbetaben PET/CT to Tc-99m ECD SPECT using voxel, regional, and network analysis

This study aimed to validate early-phase F-18 Florbetaben positron emission tomography (eFBB PET) as a brain perfusion test and determine the optimal reference region. A total of 27 patients with early Parkinson’s disease with Tc-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer single photon emission tomography (ECD SPECT) and FBB PET were included. Six reference regions, including whole brain (GN), pons, central white matter (CWM), whole cerebellum (WC), WC with brain stem (WC + B), and cerebellar grey matter (CG), were applied to obtain SUVR using cortex volume-of-interest (VOI). Reference regions of WC ( r 0.886), WC + B ( r 0.897), and CG ( r 0.904) had highest correlation values of cortex-VOI SUVR between both perfusion images (all p