Title:SPECT Radiopharmaceuticals for Dementia
Volume: 6
Issue: 4
Author(s): Claudio Guidotti, Daniela Farioli, Maria Chiara Gaeta, Elisabetta Giovannini, Patrizia Lazzeri, Martina Meniconi and Andrea Ciarmiello
Affiliation:
Keywords:
SPECT, neuroimaging, radiopharmaceuticals, dementia, functional imaging, 99mTc.
Abstract: Over the last decade the interest towards functional neuroimaging has gradually increased, especially in the
field of neurodegenerative diseases. At present, diagnosis of dementia is mostly clinical. Numerous modalities of neuroimaging
are today available, each of them allowing a different aspect of neurodegeneration to be investigated.
Although during the last periodmany have predicted a forthcoming disappearance of SPECT imaging in favour of the
PET imaging, many new radiotracers SPECT, dual-SPECT tracers techniques and receptor targeting designed radiopharmaceuticals
are currently at study.
Besides, last decade has also assisted to the development of new SPECT imaging systems, most of them integrated with
other imaging modalities (MRI, CT, ultrasound techniques), granting improved imaging capabilities.
All these improved conditions, especially appealing for the neuroimaging, together with the new radiopharmaceuticals in
development may renovate the interest for SPECT clinical applications.
