Motivation: For the diagnostic investigation of dementia, there is a growing demand for paraclinical tools such as the glucose analogue 18FDG-PET. Using deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) as an alternative marker of glucose uptake is challenged by low spatial resolution. Goal(s): To assess the correlation of DMI with FDG-PET for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Approach: A prospective clinical study including 10 AD patients whose brain glucose uptake was examined with both DMI and FDG-PET. Results: DMI correlates with FDG-PET for brains affected by AD. Combining the DMI signals from all glucose metabolites provides high signal intensity and a strong correlation with FDG-PET (r=0.63). Impact: This study suggests that DMI can aid the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, but the low spatial resolution of DMI should be addressed in future studies. As total DMI signal correlates with FDG-PET, reducing spectral resolution could be the way forward.
Trosborg et al. (Tue,) studied this question.