Current Molecular Imaging Positron Emitting Radiotracers in Oncology

Abstract

Molecular imaging is one of the fastest growing areas of medical imaging. Positron emission tomography (PET) has been widely used in the clinical management of patients with cancer. Nuclear imaging provides biological information at the cellular, subcellular, and molecular level in living subjects with noninvasive procedures. In particular, PET imaging takes advantage of traditional diagnostic imaging techniques and introduces positron-emitting probes to determine the expression of indicative molecular targets at different stages of cancer. 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose ( 18 F-FDG), the only FDA approved oncological PET tracer, has been widely utilized in cancer diagnosis, staging, restaging, and even monitoring response to therapy; however, 18 F-FDG is not a tumor-specific PET tracer. Over the last decade, many promising tumor-specific PET tracers have been developed and evaluated in preclinical and clinical studies. This review provides an overview of the current non-18 F-FDG PET tracers in oncology that have been developed based on tumor characteristics such as increased metabolism, hyperproliferation, angiogenesis, hypoxia, apoptosis, and tumor-specific antigens and surface receptors.

Detection and Characterization of Parathyroid Adenoma/Hyperplasia for Preoperative Localization: Comparison Between 11C-Methionine PET/CT and 99mTc-Sestamibi Scintigraphy

“…Our novel approach was to acquire pPTH from a linear regression model obtained from SUVR and preoperative sPTH. From the regression, pPTH of PH was shown to be lower than that of PA, which means that PH has the character of low 11 C-methionine uptake compared with PA. Therefore, Met-PET/CT has a potential to be used for differentiation of PH from PA, as well as for localization of parathyroid tissue.…”

“…11 C-Methionine positron emission tomography/computed tomography (Met-PET/CT) has been increasingly used in oncologic imaging as a complementary method to 18 F-FDG PET/CT that is limited in the differentiation of a malignant lesion from coexisting peritumoral or post-therapeutic inflammatory change [11][12][13]. In particular, it has been known that methionine is one of amino acids comprising parathyroid hormone and that it is closely related with biosynthesis of parathyroid hormone [14,15].…”

Small-Animal PET: What Is It, and Why Do We Need It?

“…Cancer is the primary application of small-animal PET (3,44,45). Table 2 provides a few samples of common tracers and their targeted mechanisms used for oncology applications.…”

Sodium-22-radiolabeled silica nanoparticles as new radiotracer for biomedical applications: in vivo positron emission tomography imaging, biodistribution, and biocompatibility

“…2 The potentiality of this nuclear imaging modality is due to the high sensitivity of the radiotracers, which are labeled by radioactive isotopes, such as radioactive halogens (F-18; Br-76, 77; I-124), carbon-11, and radioactive metals (Ga-68, Cu-64). 3 Micro-or even picomoles of radiolabeled materials are usually sufficient for PET-image generation and thus the radiotracers will occupy only a minor part of the radio-pharmaceutics and have no pharmacologically relevant activity.…”