Introducing admiralneuro!

Introduction

{admiralneuro} joins the family as the latest {admiral} extension package. The package supports neurological disease areas, with the initial release of version 0.1.0 focusing on Alzheimer’s disease.

The package was born out of a collaboration between Eli Lilly, Roche, Cytel, GSK, and contributors from the wider industry. The package maintainer is Jian Wang (Eli Lilly).

Package Contents

In the 0.1.0 release, {admiralneuro} provides the following:

• Alzheimer’s-specific SDTM test data - this will be moved to {pharmaversesdtm} for the 0.2.0 release of {admiralneuro}
  • DM - Demographics dataset including age-appropriate Alzheimer’s patients
  • NV - Neurological exams dataset including amyloid and tau PET scans at baseline and two follow-up visits
  • SUPPNV- Supplemental neurological exams dataset including reference regions used for SUVR calculations
  • AG - Agents dataset including tracer details for amyloid and tau PET scans
• A brand-new function admiralneuro::compute_centiloid() that computes Centiloid values based on amyloid PET tracer, SUVR pipeline, and reference region
• Two template programs for ADAPET and ADTPET
• A corresponding Creating ADTPET and ADAPET Vignette

compute_centiloid()

The Centiloid scale is a standardized quantitative measure for amyloid PET imaging that allows comparison between different tracers and analysis methods. It is calculated as:

\(Centiloid = slope*SUVR + intercept\)

where SUVR is a patient’s Standardized Uptake Value Ratio.

The admiralneuro::compute_centiloid() function neatly computes Centiloid values from SUVR values given a specific combination of tracer, SUVR pipeline, and reference region in order to define slope and intercept. Currently, the following combinations of tracer, pipeline, and ref_region are supported:

tracer	pipeline	ref_region	slope	intercept
18F-Florbetapir	AVID FBP SUVR PIPELINE	Whole Cerebellum	183.07	-177.26
18F-Florbetaben	AVID FBB SUVR PIPELINE	Whole Cerebellum	156.06	-148.13
18F-Florbetapir	BERKELEY FBP SUVR PIPELINE	Whole Cerebellum	188.22	-189.16
18F-Florbetaben	BERKELEY FBB SUVR PIPELINE	Whole Cerebellum	157.15	-151.87

Here is an example of the function in action:

library(admiral)
library(admiralneuro)
library(dplyr)

adapet_example <- admiralneuro::admiralneuro_adapet %>%
  filter(PARAMCD == "SUVRBFBB")

adapet_example <- adapet_example %>%
  admiral::derive_param_computed(
    by_vars = c(
      get_admiral_option("subject_keys"),
      exprs(ADT, ADY, VISIT)
    ),
    parameters = c("SUVRBFBB"),
    set_values_to = exprs(
      AVAL = compute_centiloid(
        tracer = "18F-Florbetaben",
        pipeline = "BERKELEY FBB SUVR PIPELINE",
        ref_region = "Whole Cerebellum",
        suvr = AVAL
      ),
      PARAMCD = "CENTLD",
      PARAM = "Centiloid value derived from SUVR pipeline",
      AVALU = "CL"
    )
  )

USUBJID	PARAMCD	PARAM	VISIT	AVAL	AVALU
01-701-1345	CENTLD	Centiloid value derived from SUVR pipeline	BASELINE	186.0025	CL
01-701-1345	CENTLD	Centiloid value derived from SUVR pipeline	WEEK 12	206.2748	CL
01-701-1360	CENTLD	Centiloid value derived from SUVR pipeline	BASELINE	164.6301	CL
01-714-1288	CENTLD	Centiloid value derived from SUVR pipeline	BASELINE	130.6857	CL
01-714-1288	CENTLD	Centiloid value derived from SUVR pipeline	WEEK 12	150.9580	CL
01-714-1288	CENTLD	Centiloid value derived from SUVR pipeline	WEEK 26	191.6599	CL

Alternatively, the user can specify a custom slope and intercept to the function using the custom_slope and custom_intercept parameters.

Note that support for additional combinations of tracers, pipelines, and reference regions may be added in the future as needed. See Iaccarino, L. et al., 2025 for more Centiloid transformation formulas.

Templates and Vignette

The {admiralneuro} package website contains the Creating ADTPET and ADAPET Vignette which guides users through the creation of both ADTPET (Tau PET) and ADAPET (Amyloid PET) ADaM datasets. This covers the use of the admiralneuro::compute_centiloid() function above, as well as other therapeutic area-specific considerations for these BDS datasets such as derivation of criterion flag variables for Centiloid categories.

The vignette accompanies the ADTPET and ADAPET template scripts, which can be used as a starting point for creating these ADaM datasets. These scripts can be loaded and saved directly from the R console by running either of the following:

use_ad_template("ADTPET", package = "admiralneuro")

use_ad_template("ADAPET", package = "admiralneuro")

Conclusion

We’re excited to share the first release of {admiralneuro} , and we hope it will be a valuable resource for those working in the Alzheimer’s disease space. We look forward to expanding the package in future releases to include alpha-synuclein pathology, a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease that is also found in other neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease. We’ll also be adding functions to explore olfactory impairment, a fascinating early signal connected to both Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

As with all pharmaverse packages, community feedback is not only welcomed but encouraged so that development remains in a direction that is relevant and useful! Please raise your feedback as issues or discussions in our GitHub repository or the pharmaverse slack.

Last updated

2025-09-16 08:03:03.878343

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