The parent company of Lantheus Medical Imaging, Lantheus Holdings, is highlighting new data showing that its investigational flurpiridaz F-18 PET radiopharmaceutical agent for myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) is superior to MPI with SPECT in patients with suspected heart disease undergoing stress testing.
The research will be presented at the upcoming American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) meeting in Boca Raton, FL.
Dr. Rob Beanlands of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and colleagues conducted the multicenter international phase III study, which was based on a blinded read of PET and SPECT data. It included 800 patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease who were scheduled for coronary angiography and conventional SPECT, Lantheus said.
Flurpiridaz F-18 PET imaging showed statistically significant greater sensitivity (67%) versus SPECT (54.9%), but lower specificity (73.8% vs. 85.4%) -- although this result was not statistically significant. In addition, a significantly higher percentage of rest images were rated as excellent or good quality with flurpiridaz than with SPECT, according to the researchers.
Under a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved special protocol assessment, Lantheus will soon start the second of two phase III trials for the agent, the company said.
