Florbetapir F 18 (¹⁸F-AV-45) is a positron emission tomography (PET) imaging ligand for the detection of amyloid aggregation associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Earlier data showed that florbetapir F 18 binds with high affinity to β-amyloid plaques in human brain homogenates (Kd = 3.7 nM) and has favorable imaging pharmacokinetic properties, including rapid brain penetration and washout. The present study used human autopsy brain tissue to evaluate the correlation between in vitro florbetapir F 18 binding and β-amyloid density measured by established neuropathological methods.

The localization and density of florbetapir F 18 binding in frozen and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded sections of postmortem brain tissue from 40 subjects with a varying degree of neurodegenerative pathology was assessed by standard florbetapir F 18 autoradiography and correlated with the localization and density of β-amyloid identified by silver staining, thioflavin S staining, and immunohistochemistry.

There were strong quantitative correlations between florbetapir F 18 tissue binding and both β-amyloid plaques identified by light microscopy (sliver staining and thioflavin S fluorescence) and by immunohistochemical measurements of β-amyloid using three antibodies recognizing different epitopes of the β-amyloid peptide (Aβ). Florbetapir F 18 did not bind to neurofibrillary tangles.

Florbetapir F 18 selectively binds β-amyloid in human brain tissue. The binding intensity was quantitatively correlated with the density of β-amyloid plaques identified by standard neuropathological techniques and correlated with the density of Aβ measured by immunohistochemistry. Since β-amyloid plaques are a defining neuropathological feature for Alzheimer’s disease, these results support the use of florbetapir F 18 as an amyloid PET ligand to identify the presence of AD pathology in patients with signs and symptoms of progressive late-life cognitive impairment.