Braak-tau IQ: a quantization decomposition method based on tau PET images in Alzheimer′s disease
10.3760/cma.j.cn321828-20240122-00030
- VernacularTitle:Braak-tau IQ：一种适用于阿尔茨海默病tau PET图像的量化分解方法
- Author:
Jianwei MEN
1
;
Rong SHI
;
Min WANG
;
Qi ZHANG
;
Jiaying LU
;
Huiwei ZHANG
;
Qianhua ZHAO
;
Jiehui JIANG
;
Chuantao ZUO
;
Yihui GUAN
Author Information
1. 上海大学生命科学学院，上海生物医学工程研究所，上海 200444
- Keywords:
Alzheimer disease;
Cognitive dysfunction;
Benzothiazoles;
tau proteins;
Positron-emission tomography;
Algorithms
- From:
Chinese Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
2024;44(12):718-723
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
-
Abstract:
Objective:A voxel-level quantification method based on the tau IQ algorithm and Braak staging, excluding β-amyloid (Aβ) imaging, was developed to achieve specific tau quantification. Methods:This cross-sectional study included 92 subjects (35 males, 57 females; age (62.9±10.4) years) from the Nuclear Medicine/PET Center of Huashan Hospital, Fudan University between November 2018 and July 2020. The cohort comprised 28 cognitively normal (CN) individuals, 20 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 44 patients with Alzheimer′s disease (AD). All participants underwent 18F-florzolotau PET imaging, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scoring. A longitudinal tau dataset was constructed based on Braak staging. Voxel-level logistic regression fitting provided a baseline matrix, decomposed via least squares to yield the Tau load coefficient. One-way analysis of variance (with post hoc Tukey) was used to compare Tau load and SUV ratio (SUVR) among groups. ROC curve analysis was used to evaluate classification between CN, MCI and AD. Spearman rank correlation was used to assess the relationships between Tau load, SUVR, and MMSE scores or CDR scores. Results:The Tau load in the CN group was close to 0 and significantly lower than that in the MCI and AD groups ( F=55.03, P<0.001; post hoc tests all P<0.001). Significant differences were also observed in the SUVR across all ROIs ( F values: 36.46-55.38, all P<0.001). Compared to SUVR, Tau load demonstrated greater intergroup differences. In ROC curve analyses between each pair of CN, MCI, and AD groups, Tau load consistently achieved the highest AUC (0.754-1.000). Both Tau load and SUVR for each ROI were negatively correlated with MMSE scores ( rs values: from -0.698 to -0.583, all P<0.05) and positively correlated with CDR scores ( rs values: 0.648-0.783, all P<0.05), with Tau load showing the highest absolute correlation coefficients. Conclusion:Compared to the traditional semi-quantitative SUVR method, the Braak-tau IQ algorithm does not require a specific reference brain region to achieve specific tau quantification.
