Clinical & Experimental Cardiology
Open Access
ISSN: 2155-9880
ISSN: 2155-9880
Katsutoshi Furukawa
AcceptedAbstracts: J Clin Exp Cardiolog
Cardiac amyloidosis is a disease that ?amyloid?, such as transthyretin, deposits in the myocardium leading to cardiac failure. For its definitive diagnosis myocardial biopsy is needed.In order to visualize amyloid deposition in the myocardium, we performed a cardiac positron-emission tomographystudy with [11C]-BF-227 that sensitively and specifically bindsto aggregated amyloid fibrils. The positron-emission tomographyimages revealed significantly robust retention of[11C]-BF-227 in the patient?s heart compared with that of thenormal control. Biopsy specimens from the patient?sduodenum also showed higher signals of BF-227 comparedwith that of the normal control. Thepresent result provides evidence that our amyloid-specificpositron- emission tomography tracer, [11C]-BF-227, can successfullydetect amyloid deposition in the heart. Severalmolecules, such as 99mTc-aprotinin and 99mTc-labeled phosphatederivatives, have been investigated to visualize cardiacamyloidosis. None of the previous tracers, however, couldspecifically bind to aggregated amyloid, which forms a-pleated sheetstructure. In any of the amyloidogenic disorders,such as transthyretin-related systemic amyloidosis andAlzheimer?s disease, it is surmised that the monomer of theamyloid protein itself is not very toxic, whereas misfoldedoligomers could cause damage to human organs.It istherefore truly important to detect the accumulation of realamyloid fibrils for the early and accurate diagnosis ofamyloidosis. To our knowledge, our group first succeeded inshowing the usefulness of a-pleated sheet structure-specificpositron-emission tomography in investing visceral organamyloidosis
Katsutoshi Furukawa has completed his M.D. degree at Yamagata University in 1988,and has obtained Ph.D. degreefromTohoku University in 1992. After he performed postdoctoral studies at University of Kentucky and University of Washington,he worked as a tenure track investigatorat theNational Institute on Aging. He is now an associate professor at the Department of Geriatrics and Gerontology, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. He has published more than 100 papers in reputed journals and serves as an editorial board member of three medical journals