UPMC researchers have discovered a new agent—dubbed Pittsburgh Compound B or PIB—that may revolutionize the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages within the next decade.
The technology gives doctors the tools to visualize in living people the deadly brain plaque long suspected of causing the memory-dissipating disease. Until now, an autopsy was the only way to confirm the accumulation of the toxic brain protein beta-amyloid.
When PIB is injected into the body, it emits radioactive particles that are imaged with positron emission tomography, better known as a PET scan. As a result, researchers may see pathological changes in the brain that are detected as early as 10 years before actual memory loss. The ground-breaking discovery is being watched by the medical world as clinical trials get underway.
The compound was developed by UPMC scientists Dr. Chester Mathis, a specialist in radiopharmaceuticals, and Dr. William Klunk, associate professor of psychiatry. Together with Dr. Steven DeKosky, director of the Alzheimer Disease Research Center at UPMC, the team is collaborating with researchers around the globe for further study.
The findings were presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine in Washington, D.C. this month, the world’s largest society of molecular imaging and nuclear medicine professionals. The discovery was first written up in the Annals of Neurology in March 2004 .
Writer: Debra Diamond Smit
Source: Jocelyn Uhl, UPMC