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Multicenter Study
. 2020 Jun;13(6):1337-1347.
doi: 10.1016/j.jcmg.2020.02.023. Epub 2020 May 13.

Diagnostic Accuracy of [11C]PIB Positron Emission Tomography for Detection of Cardiac Amyloidosis

Sara Rosengren  1 , Tor Skibsted Clemmensen  2 , Lars Tolbod  3 , Sven-Olof Granstam  4 , Hans Eiskjær  2 , Gerhard Wikström  5 , Ola Vedin  5 , Tanja Kero  6 , Mark Lubberink  7 , Hendrik J Harms  3 , Frank A Flachskampf  4 , Tomasz Baron  4 , Kristina Carlson  8 , Fabian Mikkelsen  2 , Gunnar Antoni  9 , Niels Frost Andersen  10 , Steen Hvitfeldt Poulsen  2 , Jens Sörensen  11
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Free article
Multicenter Study

Diagnostic Accuracy of [11C]PIB Positron Emission Tomography for Detection of Cardiac Amyloidosis

Sara Rosengren et al. JACC Cardiovasc Imaging. 2020 Jun.
Free article

Abstract

Objectives: This dual-site study evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of the method.

Background: Pittsburgh compound ([11C]PIB) positron emission tomography (PIB-PET) has shown promise as a specific and noninvasive method for the diagnosis of cardiac amyloidosis (CA).

Methods: The study had 2 parts. In the initial study, 51 subjects were included, 36 patients with known CA and increased wall thickness (15 immunoglobulin light chain [AL] and 21 transthyretin [ATTR] amyloidosis) and 15 control patients (7 were nonamyloid hypertrophic and 8 healthy volunteers). Subjects underwent PIB-PET and echocardiography. Sensitivity and specificity of PIB-PET were established for 2 simple semiquantitative approaches, standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) and retention index (RI). The second part of the study included 11 amyloidosis patients (5 AL and 6 hereditary ATTR) without increased wall thickness to which the optimal cutoff values of SUVR (>1.09) and RI (>0.037 min-1) were applied prospectively.

Results: The diagnostic accuracy of visual inspection of [11C]PIB uptake was 100% in discriminating CA patients with increased wall thickness from controls. Semiquantitative [11C]PIB uptake discriminated CA from controls with a 94% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 80% to 99%) sensitivity for both SUVR and RI and specificity of 93% (95% CI: 66% to 100%) for SUVR and 100% (95% CI: 75% to 100%) for RI. [11C]PIB uptake was significantly higher in AL-CA than in ATTR-CA patients (p < 0.001) and discriminated AL-CA from controls with 100% (95% CI: 88% to 100%) accuracy for both the semiquantitative measures. In the prospective group without increased wall thickness, RI was elevated compared to controls (p = 0.001) and 5 of 11 subjects were evaluated as [11C]PIB PET positive.

Conclusions: In a dual-center setting, [11C]PIB PET was highly accurate in detecting cardiac involvement in the main amyloid subtypes, with 100% accuracy in AL amyloidosis. A proportion of amyloidosis patients without known cardiac involvement were [11C]PIB PET positive, indicating that the method may detect early stages of CA.

Keywords: PET; Pittsburgh compound B; diagnosis; heart; nuclear imaging.

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