SPECT/CT to quantify early small airway disease and its relationship to clinical symptoms in smokers with normal lung function: a pilot study.

Introduction: Smokers frequently display respiratory symptoms despite the fact that their pulmonary function tests (PFTs) can be normal. Quantitative lung ventilation single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT/CT) can provide a quantification of lung ventilatory homogeneity and could prove useful as an early marker of airway disease in smokers. We measured the effects of smoking on regional ventilation distribution in subjects with normal lung function and evaluated whether ventilation distribution in these subjects is related to lung function tests results and clinical symptoms.

Role of 18F-choline and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in combination with magnetic resonance imaging in brachytherapy planning for locally advanced cervical cancer: A pilot study.

Background And Purpose: This pilot study aims to describe the advantages of combining metabolic and anatomic imaging modalities in brachytherapy (BT) planning for locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC) and to evaluate the supplementary value of Fluoro(F)-Choline positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in comparison to 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) in this setting.

Materials And Methods: A prospective cohort of six patients with LACC was included in this study. Each patient underwent BT planning CT scan, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and both FDG and F-Choline PET/CT scans on the same day, with BT applicators in place.

Adaptive Fluorodeoxyglucose-Positron Emission Tomography Based Chemotherapy Selection for Metastatic Non-small Cell Lung Cancer.

Objectives The change in tumor fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake by positron emission tomography (PET) scan after one cycle of platinum-based chemotherapy has been shown to predict progression-free and overall survival (PFS and OS) among advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Using early FDG-PET response to determine subsequent chemotherapy, we aim to evaluate the role that adaptive chemotherapy regimens have on later CT response, PFS, and OS in patients with advanced NSCLC. Materials and Methods Chemotherapy-naïve patients with metastatic NSCLC received carboplatin and paclitaxel (CP) on day one and repeated FDG-PET on day 18.

Practical considerations for establishing dead-time corrections in quantitative SPECT imaging.

Unlabelled: Quantitative SPECT studies require specific information about the equipment being used. Particularly in the context of therapeutic studies, the effect of dead-time can be significant and must be quantified. We explored different techniques for measuring the dead-time constant and applying dead-time corrections to the data.

Physiologic colonic uptake of F-FDG on PET/CT is associated with clinical response and gut microbiome composition in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) represent the backbone treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Emerging data suggest that increased gut microbiome diversity is associated with favorable response to ICI and that antibiotic-induced dysbiosis is associated with deleterious outcomes. F-FDG physiologic colonic uptake on PET/CT increases following treatment with antibiotics (ATB) and could act as a surrogate marker for microbiome composition and predict prognosis.

The Peritoneum: What Nuclear Radiologists Need to Know.

The peritoneum is the largest and most complex serous membrane in the human body. The peritoneal membrane is composed of a layer of mesothelium supported by a thin layer of connective tissue. The peritoneum is one continuous sheet, forming two layers and a potential space between them - the peritoneal cavity- which is subdivided into multiple communicating spaces containing small amount of serous fluid that facilitates frictionless movement of mobile intraabdominal viscera.

Simplified and robust one-step radiosynthesis of [ F]DCFPyL via direct radiofluorination and cartridge-based purification.

[ F]DCFPyL is a clinical-stage PET radiotracer used to image prostate cancer. This report details the efficient production of [ F]DCFPyL using single-step direct radiofluorination, without the use of carboxylic acid-protecting groups. Radiolabeling reaction optimization studies revealed an inverse correlation between the amount of precursor used and the radiochemical yield.

Reproducibility of Lobar Perfusion and Ventilation Quantification Using SPECT/CT Segmentation Software in Lung Cancer Patients.

Planar perfusion scintigraphy with Tc-labeled macroaggregated albumin is often used for pretherapy quantification of regional lung perfusion in lung cancer patients, particularly those with poor respiratory function. However, subdividing lung parenchyma into rectangular regions of interest, as done on planar images, is a poor reflection of true lobar anatomy. New tridimensional methods using SPECT and SPECT/CT have been introduced, including semiautomatic lung segmentation software.

The relative value of 18F-FDG PET interpretation criteria in generating a probabilistic approach for characterization of pulmonary nodules.

Purpose: The evaluation of pulmonary nodules constitutes a large part of PET-CT studies. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the different interpretation criteria in F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET attenuation-corrected and non-attenuation-corrected studies as individual predictors of malignancy in order to propose a useful combination of criteria that can be used in daily practice to classify nodules appropriately.

Patients And Methods: We performed a historical prospective survey of all consecutive patients referred to our service for the initial assessment of pulmonary nodules and sought the final characterization of these nodules either from tissue sampling or from radiological and clinical follow-up.

Tumor 3'-deoxy-3'-(18)F-fluorothymidine ((18)F-FLT) uptake by PET correlates with thymidine kinase 1 expression: static and kinetic analysis of (18)F-FLT PET studies in lung tumors.

Unlabelled: We report the first, to our knowledge, findings describing the relationships between both static and dynamic analysis parameters of 3'-deoxy-3'-(18)F-fluorothymidine ((18)F-FLT) PET and the expression of the proliferation marker Ki-67, and the protein expression and enzymatic activity of thymidine kinase-1 (TK1) in surgically resected lung lesions.

Methods: Static and dynamic analyses (4 rate constants and 2 compartments) of (18)F-FLT PET images were performed in a cohort of 25 prospectively accrued, clinically suspected lung cancer patients before surgical resection (1 lesion was found to be benign after surgery). The maximal and overall averaged expression of Ki-67 and TK1 were determined by semiquantitative analysis of immunohistochemical staining.