Dear Molecular Imaging Insider,
Sometimes the most interesting findings in a study are the objectives radiology cannot achieve in certain clinical applications. Danish researchers found that to be the case when they compared SPECT/CT, PET/CT, and PET/MRI with planar bone scintigraphy for detecting and diagnosing bone metastases.
Despite the apparent technological advantages, the team from the University of Copenhagen discovered no statistically significant differences between the three hybrid modalities and planar bone scintigraphy in sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, or overall accuracy when equivocal readings were excluded. Read more about the implications of the study in our Insider Exclusive.
In another head-to-head comparison, this time to determine the most accurate modality for diagnosing myocardial ischemia, Dutch researchers found that PET alone outperformed SPECT, coronary CT angiography (CCTA), and hybrid variations of the three modalities in patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). The group also concluded that combining CCTA with SPECT or PET did not improve the detection of CAD among these symptomatic patients.
There have also been noteworthy developments in Alzheimer's research. For example, PET brain scans of people with mild cognitive problems show evidence of lower serotonin transporter levels, which could be an early sign of dementia. The findings suggest the lower levels are a cause of the condition, rather than an effect.
In other news, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are advancing lung cancer surgery by combining intraoperative molecular imaging with a novel near-infrared contrast agent and preoperative PET/CT scans to help surgeons better see and extract both obvious and hard-to-find tumors. Preliminary results from a pilot trial show how the infrared agent, OTL38, makes tumor cells glow, allowing clinicians to detect malignant lung nodules as small as 0.5 mm.
There is also word that a new PET radiopharmaceutical based on carbon-11-labeled sarcosine (C-11 sarcosine) could offer an alternative to choline-11-based PET for imaging patients with prostate cancer. Researchers from the University of Michigan compared C-11 sarcosine with C-11 choline in a mouse model and also published the first image with the radiotracer in a human with prostate cancer.
Be sure to stay in touch with the Molecular Imaging Community on a daily basis to be informed on the latest news and research.
