8th Baltic Congress of Radiology

08.10.2022 Tallinn, Estonia

Using PET to diagnose Alzheimer's disease

Juhan Reimand (Estonia)

Neuroradiologist, North Estonia Medical Centre

Biography: After graduating medical studies in 2012 from University of Tartu, Juhan Reimand entered the residency of radiology and nuclear medicine in the same university. During residency it became clear that his further interests lie in the field of neuroimaging, both in radiology and in nuclear medicine. This was reinforced with a 3-month clinical foreign exchange to Amsterdam in 2017 and by being involved in an international Alzheimer’s disease neuroimaging research project. Immediately after residency, he entered a joint PhD programme between Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia). For that, Juhan lived in Amsterdam for three years working in a tertiary memory centre Alzheimercenter Amsterdam. The focus of the PhD studies was to explore possible differences between amyloid PET and cerebrospinal amyloid analysis. During his PhD studies, Juhan continued working part-time as a neuroradiologist and as part of further training, in 2018, he received the European Diploma in Neuroradiology. In 2021, Juhan successfully defended the PhD degree. Juhan is especially interested in the possibilities to image neurodegenerative disease with both MRI and PET. He is actively involved in the Estonian Association of Radiology.

Presentation

Small Hall

Synopsis: According to the World Health Organization report in 2018, the number of people affected by dementia is estimated to increase to about 152 million by 2050. The most common and well-known neurodegenerative cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which accounts for 50-80% of dementia cases. Historically, AD been diagnosed based on clinical criteria but in recent decades much has been learned about the pathophysiology of AD. That has caused more emphasis being put on different diagnostic biomarkers. According to currently widely accepted AD biomarker cascade theory, the accumulation of amyloid first pathological step toward AD, which is followed by spread of tau pathology, which is turn leads to loss of synapses and cellular death – neurodegeneration. Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging offers opportunities to diagnose each of these three pathological processes. For that FDG and amyloid PET have been utilized for many years, but recently tau PET has been gaining use. In the presentation, we will discuss the state of PET in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, major considerations for differential diagnosis and for choosing the correct modality

This agenda item is presented in the following session: S7-2 Neuroradiology

Plenary session

08.10.2022 13:30 - 15:00