Dear AuntMinnie Member,
Since its U.S. approval in 2020, F-18 fluoroestradiol (FES) PET/CT has proven highly effective for diagnosing distant metastasis or recurrence in women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancers. Can it do more? According to a team in South Korea, the imaging agent is beginning to show promise for initial staging. Click here for the details.
Speaking of doing more, Pluvicto (lutetium-177 prostate-specific membrane antigen 617) appears to be on track as a first-line therapy for men with advanced prostate cancer. In an interview, Oliver Sartor, MD, explained who the drug is treating now since its approval in 2022.
On the beat, we asked whether fibroblast activation protein-targeted theranostics will live up to their promise and heard how nuclear medicine is ahead of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's plan to end animal testing in preclinical safety studies.
In other news, AuntMinnie was on the ground at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) in New Orleans in June. Here are a few of the highlights:
Re-treating prostate cancer patients with lutetium-177 radioligand therapy after they have completed their initial course appears to improve overall survival, according to one session.
In a video interview, Phillip Kuo, MD, PhD, discussed new appropriate use criteria for amyloid and tau PET imaging in Alzheimer’s disease patients.
PET/MRI can identify previously unknown foci that generate chronic spinal pain and enable targeted interventions.
A group from Shandong First Medical University won this year’s Image of the Year award for the development of a new immuno-PET tracer.
SNMMI President Cathy Cutler, PhD, discussed developments over the last year, as well as challenges facing the field moving ahead.
We also covered the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine's (SIIM) annual meeting in Portland, OR, and caught a presentation on how informatics will play a key role in shaping the future of theranostics.
In Alzheimer’s research, there was a first. A team at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, developed a brain PET tracer and delivered it intranasally for the first time in humans. In other studies, visual reads of amyloid PET scans were validated against research methods in a real-world setting, as well as finally in racially diverse patients.
Finally, depending on when you’re reading this, you may want to rethink your plans for lunch, with a recent PET study indicating that ultraprocessed meals change myocardial blood flow compared to non-ultraprocessed meals.
For more molecular imaging news, be sure to check in regularly with our Molecular Imaging content area. And as always, if you have molecular imaging topics you'd like us to consider, please contact me.
Will Morton
Associate Editor
AuntMinnie.com