Comparison of consistency in centiloid scale among different analytical methods in amyloid PET: the CapAIBL, VIZCalc, and Amyquant methods.

Abstract

Objective: The Centiloid (CL) scale is a standardized measure for quantifying amyloid deposition in amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. We aimed to assess the agreement among 3 CL calculation methods: CapAIBL, VIZCalc, and Amyquant.

Methods: This study included 192 participants (mean age: 71.5 years, range: 50-87 years), comprising 55 with Alzheimer's disease, 65 with mild cognitive impairment, 13 with non-Alzheimer's dementia, and 59 cognitively normal participants. All the participants were assessed using the three CL calculation methods. Spearman's rank correlation, linear regression, Friedman tests, Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, and Bland-Altman analysis were employed to assess data correlations, linear associations, method differences, and systematic bias, respectively.

Results: Strong correlations (rho = 0.99, p < .001) were observed among the CL values calculated using the three methods. Scatter plots and regression lines visually confirmed these strong correlations and met the validation criteria. Despite the robust correlations, a significant difference in CL value between CapAIBL and Amyquant was observed (36.1 ± 39.7 vs. 34.9 ± 39.4; p < .001). In contrast, no significant differences were found between CapAIBL and VIZCalc or between VIZCalc and Amyquant. The Bland-Altman analysis showed no observable systematic bias between the methods.

Conclusions: The study demonstrated strong agreement among the three methods for calculating CL values. Despite minor variations in the absolute values of the Centiloid scores obtained using these methods, the overall agreement suggests that they are interchangeable.