Nuclear Imaging

From left to right are patients with EGFR mutation, KRAS mutation, and EGFR– and KRAS– tumors, respectively. Stage I and III tumors are shown in the top and bottom rows, respectively. Arrows indicate the locations of the lung tumors. Credit: Stephen S.F. Yip, Ph.D., and Hugo Aerts, Ph.D., Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston; John Kim, M.D., University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, Mich.

Note the high uptake of Ga-68-pentixafor on multi-planar reconstructions in the organs expressing CXCR4 such as the spleen (red arrows) and adrenal glands (yellow arrows), which was nearly completely blocked by the pre-injection of AMD 3100, a potent CXCR4 inhibitor. Strong accumulation of Ga-68-pentixafor was also found in the kidneys (asterisks) reflecting the renal clearance of the tracer. In addition, high, focal activities were detected in the abdominal aorta (red arrowheads) and right carotid artery (orange arrowheads) of atherosclerotic rabbits, whereas no significant signal could be detected in the non-injured left carotid artery (white arrowheads) of atherosclerotic and control rabbits, as well as in the abdominal aorta and right carotid artery of control rabbits. Furthermore, focal activities detected with PET in atherosclerotic plaques of the abdominal aorta and the right carotid artery decreased significantly when the same rabbit was re-imaged after blocking CXCR4 receptors. Image courtesy of Fabien Hyafil, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Nuclear Medicine, Klinikum Rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany