Researchers Succeeded in Visualizing Radioactive Drugs in 28 Different Types of Difficult-to-Discover Cancer



A radioactive drug is a drug with radioactivity, and by analyzing the radiation emitted from the drug after being taken into the body, it is possible to diagnose diseases that can not be seen from outside the body. Researchers announced that they have succeeded in identifying as many as 28 types of cancer using such radiopharmaceuticals.

68 Ga-FAPI PET / CT: Tracer Uptake in 28 Different Kinds of Cancer
http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/60/6/801

New Radiotracer Can Identify Nearly 30 Types of Cancer-SNMMI
https://www.snmmi.org/NewsPublications/NewsDetail.aspx?ItemNumber=31744

Until now, 18F-FDG (18F-fludeoxyglucose), which has a structure similar to glucose , has been used for cancer diagnosis. Most of the cancer tissues are active in glucose metabolism, so it is a mechanism that can examine the glucose metabolism function by examining the patients who received 18F-FDG by positron emission tomography (PET) and find out the cancer tissues.

However, there are several types of cancer tissue that are not highly sensitive to detection by 18F-FDG. It is said that there are tissues in which glucose metabolism is physiologically active by normal cells, such as stomach cancer and colon cancer, and cancer tissues in which glucose metabolism is not vigorous such as breast cancer and prostate cancer.


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Bokskapet

A research team such as Heidelberg University has announced that it is possible to identify a larger number of cancers by performing PET examination using 68Ga-FAPI (a fibroblast activation protein inhibitor) instead of 18F-FDG. Fibroblasts are cells that are often found in cancer tissues, and the mass of fibroblasts in cancer tissues is up to 90%. Fibroblasts in cancer cells express many fibroblast activation proteins unlike normal fibroblasts, and these fibroblast activation proteins are thought to be related to cancer growth etc. .

68Ga-FAPI is a radiopharmaceutical originally developed as an anticancer drug, and targets fibroblast activation proteins. Therefore, the research team conducted PET examination one hour after the administration of 68Ga-FAPI to 80 patients with 28 cancer types. As the research team measured the uptake value ( SUV ) of 68Ga-FAPI, it recorded a very high SUV for cancer tissue. The SUV ratio to normal tissue was three to six times stronger, and it was possible to identify cancer tissue using 68Ga-FAPI.

Among them, high SUV is recorded in sarcoma , esophagus cancer, breast cancer, bile duct cell cancer, lung cancer, etc. Hepatocellular carcinoma, colon cancer, head and neck cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, pheochromocytoma, renal cell carcinoma, Cancers such as differentiated thyroid cancer, adenoid cystic cancer and stomach cancer were also distinguishable. The 68Ga-FAPI was able to detect with high sensitivity even cancer tissues that were not successfully identified by 18F-FDG diagnosis, the researchers say.



Uwe Haberkorn, professor of medicine at the University of Heidelberg, commented, 'The remarkably high uptake rate of 68 Ga-FAPI is also useful for types of cancer that can not be diagnosed with conventional 18F-FDG PET.' Also, unlike the 18F-FDG, which requires the patient to be on hunger and lie down, the 68Ga-FAPI can also improve patient comfort, as it does not require patient preparation, the research team said. Yes.

in Science, Posted by log1h_ik