But it is likely that clinical use of the technology will depend on highly trained readers to visually interpret scans and to convert quantitative scores into diagnoses. Even with reliance on such experts, "there will always be results that can be described as ‘borderline’ with visual reads or as ‘intermediate’ between liberal and conservative [numerical] thresholds," and clinicians won’t know how to classify such patients, said Dr. Jagust of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.
As more patients are scanned, there will be more such "intermediate" cases. "How these radiotracers fare with larger samples along the full spectrum of both imaging and pathology will be very important for clinical applications to patients who express a wide range of dementia syndromes," he noted (Arch. Neurol. 2011 July 11 [doi:10.1001/archneurol.2011.152]).
Dr. Jagust reported serving as a consultant to GE Healthcare, which manufactures flutemetamol, and collaborating with Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, which manufactures florbetapir, through the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Dr. Fleisher’s study was supported by Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, which manufactures florbetapir and is owned by Eli Lilly. Dr. Fleisher and his associates reported numerous ties to industry sources. Dr. Wolk’s study was sponsored by GE Healthcare, which manufactures flutemetamol.