Brain pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease greatly decrease brain metabolism of both glucose and oxygen in tandem. Therefore 18F-FDG PET of the brain may also be used to successfully differentiate Alzheimer's disease from other dementing processes, and also to make early diagnoses of Alzheimer's disease. The advantage of 18F-FDG PET for these uses is its much wider availability. Some 18F based radioactive tracers used for Alzheimer's include florbetapir, flutemetamol, PiB and florbetaben, which are all used to detect amyloid-beta plaques (a potential biomarker for Alzheimer's) in the brain.
