Amino Acid PET Imaging of the Early Metabolic Response During Tumor-Treating Fields (TTFields) Therapy in Recurrent Glioblastoma

Abstract Background Amino acid PET imaging of brain tumors has been shown to play an important role in predicting tumor grade, delineation of tumor margins, and differentiating tumor recurrence from the background of post-radiation changes, but is not commonly used in clinical practice due to high cost. We propose that PET/MRI imaging of patients grouped to the day of tracer radiosynthesis will significantly decrease the cost of PET imaging, which will improve patient access to PET. Methods Seventeen patients with either primary brain tumors or metastatic brain tumors were recruited for imaging on 3T PET/MRI and were scanned on 4 separate days in groups of 3-5 patients. The first group of consecutively imaged patients contained three patients, followed by two groups of 5 patients, and last group of 4 patients. Results For each of the patients, standard of care gadolinium enhanced MRI and dynamic PET imaging with 18F-FDOPA amino acid tracer was obtained. The total cost savings of scanning 17 patients in batches of 4 as opposed to individual radiosynthesis was 48.5% ($28,321). Semiquantitative analysis of tracer uptake in normal brain were performed with appropriate accumulation and expected subsequent washout. Conclusion Amino acid PET tracers have been shown to play a critical role in characterization of brain tumors but their adaptation to clinical practice has been limited due to high cost of PET. Scheduling patient imaging to maximally utilize the radiosynthesis of imaging tracer significantly reduces the cost of PET and results in increased availability of PET tracer use in neuro-oncology.

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Feasibility study of gallium-68 citrate PET as a bone-tropic imaging biomarker in mCRPC.

Journal of Clinical Oncology ◽

10.1200/jco.2021.39.6_suppl.31 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 39 (6_suppl) ◽

pp. 31-31

Author(s):

Ivan de Kouchkovsky ◽

Spencer Behr ◽

Li Zhang ◽

Adam Foye ◽

Henry Vanbrocklin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Soft Tissue ◽

Pet Imaging ◽

Metabolic Response ◽

Imaging Biomarker ◽

Conventional Imaging ◽

Castration Resistance ◽

Imaging Results ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Gallium 68 ◽

Early Metabolic Response

31 Background: Transferrin receptor (TFRC) expression is controlled by the PI3K and MYC signaling pathways, which are frequently dysregulated in prostate cancer (PC). Gallium-68 citrate (68Ga-citrate) is an iron biomimetic, which can be used to image PC in a TFRC dependent fashion. We performed a single-center pilot imaging study to investigate the use of 68Ga-citrate PET in patients with metastatic castration-resistant PC (mCRPC). Methods: Following written informed consent, mCRPC patients were prospectively enrolled and underwent 68Ga-citrate PET imaging. Optional metastatic tumor biopsies were undertaken at the time of imaging. Results: 34 mCRPC patients underwent 68Ga-citrate PET imaging. The median age was 67.5 years old. Median duration of castration resistance was 17.5 months; 14.7% of patients were post-docetaxel. Median serum PSA was 35.2 ng/dL. A total of 483 lesions were detected on conventional imaging (CT, 99mTc-HDP) or 68Ga-citrate PET, including 420 osseous and 63 soft tissue (nodal and visceral) lesions (Table). 67.3% of all lesions were detected on 68Ga-citrate PET, including 74.5% of all osseous lesions but only 19.0% of all soft tissue lesions (p<0.0001). Eight (1.7%) lesions were detected on 68Ga-citrate PET imaging only. Per-lesion average SUVmax (SUVmax,avg) was 6.7. Metastatic biopsies of PET avid lesions were performed in 20 patients (59%); adenocarcinoma histology was confirmed in 14 (70%) cases, treatment-emergent small cell neuroendocrine cancer (t-SCNC) in 6 (30%). There was no significant difference in SUVmax,avg between patients with adenocarcinoma or t-SCNC (SUVmax,avg 7.3 vs 7.6, respectively; Table). Serial 68Ga-citrate PET perfomed in a patient with biopsy-confirmed t-SCNC after 2 cycles of carboplatin/cabazitaxel demonstrated an early metabolic response (28.5% decrease in average SUVmax) confirmed on subsequent conventional imaging. Conclusions: 68Ga-citrate PET detects mCRPC bone metastases in patients with biopsy-proven prostatic adenocarcinoma or t-SCNC, distinguishing it from lineage dependent agents such as PSMA tracers. Detection of an early metabolic response in the bone of a treated t-SCNC patient was observed. Further prospective studies are ongoing coupling serial Ga-citrate PET with investigational agents targeting the MYC signaling pathway. Clinical trial information: NCT02391025. [Table: see text]

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