Quantitation of PET spatial extent as a potential adjunct to visual interpretation of [¹⁸F]flortaucipir imaging: TAU-SPEX.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Among visually Tau-PET-positive scans, large variation exists in the size of the visually tau-positive area. Here, we propose a metric quantifying the spatial extent of visual Tau-PET-positivity, termed "TAU-SPEX", and evaluate associations with visual read status, neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) pathology at autopsy, and cognition.

Methods

[¹⁸F]flortaucipir data from 1,645 participants (aged 71.9 ± 8.2 years, 50.3% females) from four cohorts were visually read as positive or negative. TAU-SPEX was calculated as the percentage of gray matter voxels with suprathreshold Tau-PET uptake (using a threshold identical to that used for visual reading) in a spatially unconstrained whole-brain mask. We additionally computed Tau-PET SUVr in a whole-brain and temporal me

SUBMITTER: Coomans EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12589304 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature