[(18)F]Florbetaben: a review in β-amyloid PET imaging in cognitive impairment

Intravenous (18)F-labelled florbetaben ([(18)F]florbetaben) [Neuraceq™] is a polyethylene glycol stilbene derivative that is approved in the USA, EU and South Korea for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of the brain. It is used to estimate β-amyloid neuritic plaque density in adult patients with cognitive impairment who are being evaluated for Alzheimer's disease and other causes of cognitive impairment. In vitro, [(18)F]florbetaben has high affinity and selectivity for β-amyloid. It has a short PET scan time (15-20 min). Visual assessment of regional and whole brain [(18)F]florbetaben PET images detected brain β-amyloid with high sensitivity and specificity, with good inter-reader agreement, in a phase III study in patients with various levels of cognitive function when compared with postmortem histopathological assessment. The whole brain visual assessment displayed high positive and negative predictive values, enabling amyloid pathology to be reliably detected or excluded. Quantitative PET analyses were generally consistent with the visual assessments. [(18)F]florbetaben was generally well tolerated in clinical trials. All adverse reactions in [(18)F]florbetaben recipients were mild to moderate in severity and the most common were injection-site-related (erythema, irritation and pain). There were no serious adverse reactions related to [(18)F]florbetaben. In summary, [(18)F]florbetaben is a highly accurate β-amyloid PET tracer that has the potential to support the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and other causes of cognitive decline.