European Journal of Nuclear Medicine

Differences in measurement results of bone densitometry are an obvious disadvantage of this method. The differences are mainly due to the calibration procedures for bone densitometry systems employed by the manufacturers, the software algorithms for defining the region of interest or edge detection, and the physiological inhomogeneity of body composition. Whereas intea-unit variation of reproducibility is acceptable, inter-unit variation may reach up to 20%. This paper discusses the problems of designing measurement phantoms and underlines the need for standardisation of phantoms for calibration, cross-calibration, and quality control in bone densitometry. A general phantom used for cross-calibration should handle all parameters influencing measurement of bone minerals to yieldet dynamic reference values. One has to note that densitometry systems do not measure the absolute bone mineral content but a model-related equivalent of the calibration material.

213Bi-d9MAb-immunoconjugates targeting gastric cancer cells have effectively cured peritoneal carcinomatosis in a nude mouse model following intraperitoneal injection. Because the β-emitter 177Lu has proven to be beneficial in targeted therapy, 177Lu-d9MAb was investigated in this study in order to compare its therapeutic efficacy and toxicity with those of 213Bi-d9MAb. Nude mice were inoculated intraperitoneally with HSC45-M2 gastric cancer cells expressing d9-E-cadherin and were treated intraperitoneally 1 or 8 days later with different activities of specific 177Lu-d9MAb immunoconjugates targeting d9-E-cadherin or with nonspecific 177Lu-d8MAb. Therapeutic efficacy was evaluated by monitoring survival for up to 250 days. For evaluation of toxicity, both biodistribution of 177Lu-d9MAb and blood cell counts were determined at different time points and organs were examined histopathologically. Treatment with 177Lu-immunoconjugates (1.85, 7.4, 14.8 MBq) significantly prolonged survival. As expected, treatment on day 1 after tumour cell inoculation was more effective than treatment on day 8, and specific 177Lu-d9MAb conjugates were superior to nonspecific 177Lu-d8MAb. Treatment with 7.4 MBq of 177Lu-d9MAb was most successful, with 90% of the animals surviving longer than 250 days. However, treatment with therapeutically effective activities of 177Lu-d9MAb was not free of toxic side effects. In some animals lymphoblastic lymphoma, proliferative glomerulonephritis and hepatocarcinoma were seen but were not observed after treatment with 213Bi-d9MAb at comparable therapeutic efficacy. The therapeutic efficacy of 177Lu-d9MAb conjugates in peritoneal carcinomatosis is impaired by toxic side effects. Because previous therapy with 213Bi-d9MAb revealed comparable therapeutic efficacy without toxicity it should be preferred for the treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis.

A perceptual experiment was conducted using cardiac phase and amplitude images. Estimates of statistical parameters were derived from the images and the diagnostic potential of human and statistical decisions compared. Five methods were used to generate the images from 75 gated cardiac studies, 39 of which were classified as pathological. The images were presented to 12 observers experienced in nuclear medicine. The observers rated the images using a five-category scale based on their confidence of an abnormality presenting. Circular and linear statistics were used to analyse phase and amplitude image data, respectively. Estimates of mean, standard deviation (SD), skewness, kurtosis and the first term of the spatial correlation function were evaluated in the region of the left ventricle. A receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed on both sets of data and the human and statistical decisions compared. For phase images, circular SD was shown to discriminate better between normal and abnormal than experienced observers, but no single statistic discriminated as well as the human observer for amplitude images.

Positron emission tomography (PET) with 89Zr-ibritumomab tiuxetan can be used to monitor biodistribution of 90Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan as shown in mice. The aim of this study was to assess biodistribution and radiation dosimetry of 90Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan in humans on the basis of 89Zr-ibritumomab tiuxetan imaging, to evaluate whether co-injection of a therapeutic amount of 90Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan influences biodistribution of 89Zr-ibritumomab tiuxetan and whether pre-therapy scout scans with 89Zr-ibritumomab tiuxetan can be used to predict biodistribution of 90Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan and the dose-limiting organ during therapy. Seven patients with relapsed B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma scheduled for autologous stem cell transplantation underwent PET scans at 1, 72 and 144 h after injection of ~70 MBq 89Zr-ibritumomab tiuxetan and again 2 weeks later after co-injection of 15 MBq/kg or 30 MBq/kg 90Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan. Volumes of interest were drawn over liver, kidneys, lungs, spleen and tumours. Ibritumomab tiuxetan organ absorbed doses were calculated using OLINDA. Red marrow dosimetry was based on blood samples. Absorbed doses to tumours were calculated using exponential fits to the measured data. The highest 90Y absorbed dose was observed in liver (3.2 ± 1.8 mGy/MBq) and spleen (2.9 ± 0.7 mGy/MBq) followed by kidneys and lungs. The red marrow dose was 0.52 ± 0.04 mGy/MBq, and the effective dose was 0.87 ± 0.14 mSv/MBq. Tumour absorbed doses ranged from 8.6 to 28.6 mGy/MBq. Correlation between predicted pre-therapy and therapy organ absorbed doses as based on 89Zr-ibritumomab tiuxetan images was high (Pearson correlation coefficient r = 0.97). No significant difference between pre-therapy and therapy tumour absorbed doses was found, but correlation was lower (r = 0.75). Biodistribution of 89Zr-ibritumomab tiuxetan is not influenced by simultaneous therapy with 90Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan, and 89Zr-ibritumomab tiuxetan scout scans can thus be used to predict biodistribution and dose-limiting organ during therapy. Absorbed doses to spleen were lower than those previously estimated using 111In-ibritumomab tiuxetan. The dose-limiting organ in patients undergoing stem cell transplantation is the liver.

The characteristics of radiolabelled cholylglycyl-tyrosine (CGT), a recently synthesised bile acid, were studied. 125I-CGT-Na was found to have a short plasma half-life of 1.6±0.4 min in rats and 3.1±0.7 min in dogs. Biliary clearance studies showed the cumulative biliary output of the tracer over 20 min in rats to be 95.7% of the total dose administered, with a mean biliary transit time (50% retention time) of 4.0±0.1 min, i.e. similar to the biliary kinetics of taurocholate. 131I-CGT-Na proved to be satisfactory for hepatobiliary imaging in rats and dogs at doses of 35 μCi (1.3 MBq) in rats and 90 μCi (3.3 MBq) in dogs. Satisfactory hepatic images were also obtained in rats that had high bilirubin levels produced by obstruction or the recycling of bile. These results show that CGT has better pharmacokinetics than currently used hepatobiliary imaging agents, and that this new compound may be useful in scintigraphy even in the presence of jaundice.

The original version of this article contained a mistake in the first sentence of the Results section of the Abstract.

The visualization of the cerebral ventricles during a brain scan is a relatively rare possibility. The authors had the opportunity of observing four cases. They report them and discuss the 19 cases reported in world literature. There were, in order of importance, 12 cases of ventriculitis, 3 of non tumorous intraventricular erruptions, 2 of tumorous infiltration, 1 metabolic encephalopathy and one unexplained case. It is concluded that the visualization of the ventricule during a brain scan (particularly the early visualization) is a good etiological indicator of ventriculitis.

Boramino acids are a class of amino acid biomimics that replace the carboxylate group with trifluoroborate and can achieve the 18F-labeled positron emission tomography (PET) and boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) with identical chemical structure. This study reports a trifluoroborate-derived boronophenylalanine (BBPA), a derived boronophenylalanine (BPA) for BNCT, as a promising PET tracer for tumor imaging. Competition inhibition assays in cancer cells suggested the cell accumulation of [18F]BBPA is through large neutral amino acid transporter type-1 (LAT-1). Of note, [18F]BBPA is a pan-cancer probe that shows notable tumor uptake in B16-F10 tumor-bearing mice. In the patients with gliomas and metastatic brain tumors, [18F]BBPA-PET shows good tumor uptake and notable tumor-to-normal brain ratio (T/N ratio, 18.7 ± 5.5, n = 11), higher than common amino acid PET tracers. The [18F]BBPA-PET quantitative parameters exhibited no difference in diverse contrast-enhanced status (P = 0.115–0.687) suggesting the [18F]BBPA uptake was independent from MRI contrast-enhancement. This study outlines a clinical trial with [18F]BBPA to achieve higher tumor-specific accumulation for PET, provides a potential technique for brain tumor diagnosis, and might facilitate the BNCT of brain tumors.

The aim of this study was to assess the value of combined PET/CT compared with PET reviewed side-by-side with CT, in patients with oesophageal cancer, before and after surgery. Forty-one FDG PET/CT studies were performed in 32 patients with oesophageal cancer, before surgery (n=18) or during follow-up after resection of the primary tumour (n=23). One hundred and fifteen sites suspicious for malignancy were evaluated. PET/CT was prospectively compared with PET reviewed side-by-side with CT, for detection, accurate localisation and characterisation of malignant sites. PET/CT performance in different anatomical regions was compared before and after surgery. The impact of fused data on patient management was retrospectively assessed. PET/CT had an incremental value over PET for interpretation of 25 of 115 sites (22%), changing the initial characterisation of ten sites to either malignant (n=1) or benign (n=9), and defining the precise anatomical location of 15 sites. PET/CT provided better specificity and accuracy than PET for detecting sites of oesophageal cancer (81% and 90% vs 59% and 83% respectively, p<0.01). Fusion was of special value for interpretation of cervical and abdomino-pelvic sites, for disease assessment in loco-regional lymph nodes before surgery and in regions of postoperative anatomical distortion. PET/CT had an impact on the further management of four patients (10%), by detecting nodal metastases that warranted disease upstaging (n=2) and by excluding disease in sites of benign uptake after surgery (n=2). PET/CT improves the accuracy of FDG imaging in oesophageal cancer and provides data of diagnostic and therapeutic significance for further patient management.

In the presurgical evaluation of patients with partial epilepsies, the most extensively studied functional neuro-imaging modality to define the origin of seizure onset is fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG PET). Generally, this technique reveals a widespread zone of interictal glucose hypometabolism in the region of the epileptogenic focus. However, the technique may miss the epileptogenic region and FDG PET abnormalities may extend beyond the seizure onset zone. Consequently, for the precise identification of epileptogenic regions more specific imaging probes than FDG are warranted. This review considers the clinical utility of iomazenil (IMZ) SPET and flumazenil (FMZ) PET for the precise localization of epileptogenic foci in partial epilepsy syndromes.