Molecular imaging of tumor metabolism: Insight from pyruvate- and glucose-based deuterium MRI studies.

Cancer diagnosis by metabolic MRI proposes to follow the fate of glycolytic precursors such as pyruvate or glucose, and their in vivo conversion into lactate. This study compares the H MRI outlooks afforded by these metabolites when targeting a pancreatic cancer model. Exogenously injected [3,3',3″-H]-pyruvate was visible only briefly; it generated a deuterated lactate signal throughout the body that faded after ~5 min, showing a minor concentration bias at the rims of the tumors.

High-sensitivity deuterium metabolic MRI differentiates acute pancreatitis from pancreatic cancers in murine models.

Deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) is a promising tool for investigating a tumor's biology, and eventually contribute in cancer diagnosis and prognosis. In DMI, [6,6'-H]-glucose is taken up and metabolized by different tissues, resulting in the formation of HDO but also in an enhanced formation of [3,3'-H]-lactate at the tumor site as a result of the Warburg effect. Recent studies have shown DMI's suitability to highlight pancreatic cancer in murine models by [3,3'-H]-lactate formation; an important question is whether DMI can also differentiate between these tumors and pancreatitis.

Deuterium imaging of the Warburg effect at sub-millimolar concentrations by joint processing of the kinetic and spectral dimensions.

Deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) is a promising molecular MRI approach, which follows the administration of deuterated substrates and their metabolization. [6,6'- H ]-glucose for instance is preferentially converted in tumors to [3,3'- H ]-lactate as a result of the Warburg effect, providing a distinct resonance whose mapping using time-resolved spectroscopic imaging can diagnose cancer. The MR detection of low-concentration metabolites such as lactate, however, is challenging.

Improving deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) signal-to-noise ratio by spectroscopic multi-echo bSSFP: A pancreatic cancer investigation.

Purpose: Deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) maps the uptake of deuterated precursors and their conversion into lactate and other markers of tumor metabolism. Even after leveraging H's short T s, DMI's signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is limited. We hypothesize that a multi-echo balanced steady-state free precession (ME-bSSFP) approach would increase SNR compared to chemical shift imaging (CSI), while achieving spectral isolation of the metabolic precursors and products.

Deuterium MRSI characterizations of glucose metabolism in orthotopic pancreatic cancer mouse models.

Detecting and mapping metabolism in tissues represents a major step in detecting, characterizing, treating and understanding cancers. Recently introduced deuterium metabolic imaging techniques could offer a noninvasive route for the metabolic imaging of animals and humans, based on using H magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) to detect the uptake of deuterated glucose and the fate of its metabolic products. In this study, H -glucose was administered to mice cohorts that had been orthotopically implanted with two different models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), involving PAN-02 and KPC cell lines.