Publications by authors named "Richard L. Wahl"

68 Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT targeting somatostatin receptors is commonly utilized in the imaging of neuroendocrine tumors. However, other malignancies such as lymphomas (both Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin) also have expression of somatostatin receptors, albeit to a lesser degree compared with the neuroendocrine tumors, and thus can be positive on a 68 Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT. We describe an atypical presentation of an aggressive large B-cell lymphoma mimicking a metastatic neuroendocrine tumor at initial presentation with high somatostatin receptor expression demonstrated on the 68 Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT and a rapidly progressing course on the subsequent 18 F-FDG PET/CT.

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  • - The Lancet Oncology Commission focuses on improving global access to radiotherapy and theranostics, addressing significant disparities between high-income countries and low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) concerning available treatment resources and trained healthcare professionals.
  • - The implementation of hypofractionation techniques in radiotherapy could increase treatment access for millions of patients with prostate and breast cancer, highlighting the need for new technologies in LMICs with existing resources.
  • - A global survey revealed variability in the use of radiopharmaceutical therapy, with issues related to supply chains and workforce training impacting access; initiatives like the International Atomic Energy Agency's Rays of Hope program and investment from development banks are encouraged to improve the situation.
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In oncologic PET, the SUV and standardized uptake ratio (SUR) of a viable tumor generally increase during the postinjection period. In contrast, the net influx rate ( ), which is derived from dynamic PET data, should remain relatively constant. Uptake-time-corrected SUV (cSUV) and SUR (cSUR) have been proposed as uptake-time-independent, static alternatives to Our primary aim was to quantify the intrascan repeatability of , SUV, cSUV, SUR, and cSUR among malignant lesions on PET/CT.

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In Greek mythology, The Phoenix is an immortal bird that dies, but then achieves new life by rising from the ashes of its predecessor. Radioimmunotherapy (RIT) of B-cell Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is a field which once began to fly high-with FDA approval of the anti-CD20 RITs Zevalin® and Bexxar® in 2002 and 2003 respectively, as safe and effective therapies of NHL. However, despite their therapeutic efficacy, Bexxar® was withdrawn from the market by the manufacturer in 2014 due to limited commercial demand and Zevalin® has had very limited to no availability of late.

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Thorium-227 (Th)-based α-particle radiopharmaceutical therapies (α-RPTs) are currently being investigated in several clinical and pre-clinical studies. After administration, Th decays to Ra, another α-particle-emitting isotope, which redistributes within the patient. Reliable dose quantification of both Th and Ra is clinically important, and SPECT may perform this quantification as these isotopes also emit X- and γ-ray photons.

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Patlak slope (PS) images have the potential to improve lesion conspicuity compared with standardized uptake value (SUV) images but may be more artifact-prone. This study compared PS versus SUV image quality and hepatic tumor-to-background ratios (TBRs) at matched time points. Early and late SUV and PS images were reconstructed from dynamic positron emission tomography (PET) data.

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Purpose To evaluate the ability of a semiautonomous artificial intelligence (AI) model to identify screening mammograms not suspicious for breast cancer and reduce the number of false-positive examinations. Materials and Methods The deep learning algorithm was trained using 123 248 two-dimensional digital mammograms (6161 cancers) and a retrospective study was performed on three nonoverlapping datasets of 14 831 screening mammography examinations (1026 cancers) from two U.S.

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Personalized dose-based treatment planning requires accurate and reproducible noninvasive measurements to ensure safety and effectiveness. Dose estimation using SPECT is possible but challenging for alpha (α)-particle-emitting radiopharmaceutical therapy (α-RPT) because of complex γ-emission spectra, extremely low counts, and various image-degrading artifacts across a plethora of scanner-collimator configurations. Through the incorporation of physics-based considerations and skipping of the potentially lossy voxel-based reconstruction step, a recently developed projection-domain low-count quantitative SPECT (LC-QSPECT) method has the potential to provide reproducible, accurate, and precise activity concentration and dose measures across multiple scanners, as is typically the case in multicenter settings.

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Purpose: We aimed to determine the test-retest repeatability of quantitative metrics based on the Patlak slope (PS) versus the standardized uptake value (SUV) among lesions and normal organs on oncologic [F]FDG-PET/CT.

Procedures: This prospective, single-center study enrolled adults undergoing standard-of-care oncologic [F]FDG-PET/CTs. Early (35-50 min post-injection) and late (75-90 min post-injection) SUV and PS images were reconstructed from dynamic whole-body PET data.

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Although a high amount of brown adipose tissue (BAT) is associated with low plasma triglyceride concentration, the mechanism responsible for this relationship in people is not clear. Here, we evaluate the interrelationships among BAT, very-low-density lipoprotein triglyceride (VLDL-TG), and free fatty acid (FFA) plasma kinetics during thermoneutrality in women with overweight/obesity who had a low (<20 mL) or high (≥20 mL) volume of cold-activated BAT (assessed by using positron emission tomography in conjunction with 2-deoxy-2-[F]-fluoro-glucose). We find that plasma TG and FFA concentrations are lower and VLDL-TG and FFA plasma clearance rates are faster in women with high BAT than low BAT volume, whereas VLDL-TG and FFA appearance rates in plasma are not different between the two groups.

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The development of artificial intelligence (AI) within nuclear imaging involves several ethically fraught components at different stages of the machine learning pipeline, including during data collection, model training and validation, and clinical use. Drawing on the traditional principles of medical and research ethics, and highlighting the need to ensure health justice, the AI task force of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging has identified 4 major ethical risks: privacy of data subjects, data quality and model efficacy, fairness toward marginalized populations, and transparency of clinical performance. We provide preliminary recommendations to developers of AI-driven medical devices for mitigating the impact of these risks on patients and populations.

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  • Predictive biomarkers like tumor SUVs on F-FDG PET/CT are crucial for determining responses to HER2-targeted therapies for ER-negative, HER2-positive breast cancer.
  • The TBCRC026 trial showed that early declines in SUV can predict complete response rates and potential recurrence-free and overall survival outcomes after treatment with trastuzumab and pertuzumab without chemotherapy.
  • Significant findings included that a C1D15 SUL of 3 or less was linked to improved recurrence-free survival and overall survival, while a decline of at least 40% in SUL wasn’t statistically significant for survival outcomes.
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  • Artificial intelligence (AI) can help make nuclear medicine and medical imaging faster, cheaper, and better, but both doctors and patients need to trust these AI tools to use them.
  • The AI Task Force found four big ethical issues that need to be addressed: making sure patients and doctors have their own choices, being clear about how well AI tools work, treating everyone fairly, and making sure that doctors and AI creators are responsible for their actions.
  • They also suggest early steps for solving these problems so that AI can really benefit patients and communities in a good way.
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Purpose To analyze the frequency of discrepant interpretations of progressive disease (PD) between routine clinical and formal Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) 1.1 interpretations in patients enrolled in solid tumor clinical trials and investigate the causes of discordance. Materials and Methods This retrospective study included patients in solid tumor clinical trials undergoing imaging response assessments based on RECIST 1.

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Thorium-227-based alpha-particle radiopharmaceutical therapies ({\alpha}-RPTs) are being investigated in several clinical and pre-clinical studies. After administration, Thorium-227 decays to Radium-223, another alpha-particle-emitting isotope, which redistributes within the patient. Reliable dose quantification of both Thorium-227 and Radium-223 is clinically important, and SPECT may perform this quantification as these isotopes also emit X- and gamma-ray photons.

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Single-photon emission-computed tomography (SPECT) provides a mechanism to estimate regional isotope uptake in lesions and at-risk organs after administration of -particle-emitting radiopharmaceutical therapies (-RPTs). However, this estimation task is challenging due to the complex emission spectra, the very low number of detected counts (~20 times lower than in conventional SPECT), the impact of stray-radiation-related noise at these low counts, and the multiple image-degrading processes in SPECT. The conventional reconstruction-based quantification methods are observed to be erroneous for -RPT SPECT.

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  • Thorium (Th) is a promising radioisotope for targeted α-particle therapy, producing multiple α-particles upon decay and having a sufficient supply for clinical use, though it poses significant chelation challenges due to its large tetravalent cation structure.
  • Researchers utilized the CD20-targeting antibody ofatumumab to test four different bifunctional chelators for creating thorium radiopharmaceuticals, evaluating their chemical properties in terms of yield, purity, and stability both in vitro and in vivo.
  • Among the chelators studied, Th-L804-ofatumumab was found to have the best performance, achieving high labeling efficiency and stability, while Th-DFOcyclo*-ofatumumab showed good
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Immunotherapies that target the CD20 protein expressed on most non-Hodgkin lymphoma cells have improved clinical outcomes, but relapse is common. We prepared Ac-labeled anti-CD20 ofatumumab and evaluated its in vitro characteristics and therapeutic efficacy in a murine model of disseminated human lymphoma. Ac was chelated by DOTA-ofatumumab, and radiochemical yield, purity, immunoreactivity, stability, and chelate number were determined.

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Background: Artificial intelligence-based methods have generated substantial interest in nuclear medicine. An area of significant interest has been the use of deep-learning (DL)-based approaches for denoising images acquired with lower doses, shorter acquisition times, or both. Objective evaluation of these approaches is essential for clinical application.

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Response is the logical outcome measure of a treatment in a clinical or research setting. Objective response assessment involves the use of a test to segregate patients who are likely to experience improved survival from those who are not. Early and accurate response assessment is critical for determining therapy effectiveness in clinical settings, for effective trial designs comparing two or more therapies, and for modulating treatment on the basis of response (ie, response-adapted therapy).

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  • * The National Cancer Institute has initiated a Co-Clinical Imaging Resource Program (CIRP) to enhance practices in quantitative imaging for these trials, highlighting the need for improved imaging methodologies.
  • * An overview of ten co-clinical trials supported by the CIRP showcases various types of cancer being studied, the rationale for chosen animal models, and the challenges faced, contributing valuable resources to further cancer research.
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Artificial intelligence-based methods have generated substantial interest in nuclear medicine. An area of significant interest has been using deep-learning (DL)-based approaches for denoising images acquired with lower doses, shorter acquisition times, or both. Objective evaluation of these approaches is essential for clinical application.

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As the immuno-oncology field continues the rapid growth witnessed over the past decade, optimising patient outcomes requires an evolution in the current response-assessment guidelines for phase 2 and 3 immunotherapy clinical trials and clinical care. Additionally, investigational tools-including image analysis of standard-of-care scans (such as CT, magnetic resonance, and PET) with analytics, such as radiomics, functional magnetic resonance agents, and novel molecular-imaging PET agents-offer promising advancements for assessment of immunotherapy. To document current challenges and opportunities and identify next steps in immunotherapy diagnostic imaging, the National Cancer Institute Clinical Imaging Steering Committee convened a meeting with diverse representation among imaging experts and oncologists to generate a comprehensive review of the state of the field.

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  • Trust is super important in medicine, and it's changing how doctors and patients work together, especially with new technology like AI.
  • The report talks about how AI can help in nuclear medicine, including better diagnosis and treatments, but also brings up new problems and responsibilities we need to think about.
  • To make sure AI is used safely and effectively, everyone involved in health care, like doctors and patients, needs to work together and follow a solid plan made by experts.
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