Abstract
68Ga-Trivehexin is an investigative PET radiopharmaceutical targeting the “cancer integrin” αvβ6, a tumor cell biomarker which is highly expressed by various carcinomas [1]. Feasibility of targeting αvβ6-integrin for cancer imaging has been demonstrated in preclinical and first clinical applications [2, 3, 4, 5], warranting a clinical study of 68Ga-Trivehexin (NCT05799274).
The image shows a 68Ga-Trivehexin PET/CT (146 MBq, 60 min p.i. static scan, 5 bed positions) of a male patient (50 y, 69 kg), acquired as part of primary staging before therapy planning of a histologically confirmed pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in the pancreatic corpus. Furthermore, a tonsillar carcinoma, metastasized to the right cervical side with subsequent surgical resection and chemo-radiotherapy, was known. The lateral MIP (scaled to SUV 12) and corresponding coronal fusion (A) showed intense uptakes in the cerebellopontine angle (1, SUVmax 18.5) corresponding to a brain metastasis; in a supraclavicular metastasis (2, SUVmax 12.7); in the pancreatic corpus (3, SUVmax 17.0); and in retrocrural and retroperitoneal PDAC metastases (4, SUVmax 13.3). B, C, and D show coronal and transversal PET slices and fusion, respectively, of the cerebellopontine metastasis, which was subsequently confirmed by MRI (not shown). Left tumor exstirpation yielded a specimen for histological classification of the brain metastasis as squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) with basaloid growth, p40 and p63 positive. Cranial and supraclavicular metastases were thus assigned to tonsillar carcinoma without association to HPV according to immunohistochemistry. Altogether, 68Ga-Trivehexin PET/CT revealed two αvβ6-integrin expressing tumors, PDAC and SCC, and furthermore a metastasis of the latter in the brain, which is obviously not easily possible with [18F]FDG.
Authors’ contributions
Conceived and designed the experiment: Jana Rehm, Johannes Notni, Jörg Kotzerke. Performed the experiments: Jana Rehm, Robert Winzer. Analyzed the data: Robert Winzer, Jana Rehm. Wrote the original manuscript: Jana Rehm. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.
Funding
This project received no external funding.
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Declarations
Ethics approval
The data analysis received approval from the responsible local ethics committees (EK-242052023).
Consent to participate
The authors affirm that the patient provided written informed consent prior to the investigation.
Consent for publication
The authors affirm that the patient provided written informed consent for publication of the images.
Competing interests
Johannes Notni: co-inventor of patents related to 68Ga-Trivehexin; co-founder, shareholder, and CSO of TRIMT GmbH (Radeberg, Germany); member of the scientific advisory board of Radiopharm Theranostics LLC (Carlton, Australia). All other authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Footnotes
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Associated Data
This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.
Data Availability Statement
The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.