Clinical value of 3'-deoxy-3'-[18F]fluorothymidine-positron emission tomography for diagnosis, staging and assessing therapy response in lung cancer

Bandar Alwadani, Sergio Dall'Angelo, Ian Fleming* (Corresponding Author)

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Lung cancer has the highest mortality rate of any tumour type. The main driver of lung tumour growth and development is uncontrolled cellular proliferation. Poor patient outcomes are partly the result of the limited range of effective anti-cancer therapies available and partly due to the limited accuracy of biomarkers to report on cell proliferation rates in patients. Accordingly, accurate methods of diagnosing, staging and assessing response to therapy are crucial to improve patient outcomes. One effective way of assessing cell proliferation is to employ non-invasive evaluation using 3'-deoxy-3'-[18F]fluorothymidine ([18F]FLT) positron emission tomography [18F]FLT-PET. [18F]FLT, unlike the most commonly used PET tracer [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose ([18F]FDG), can specifically report on cell proliferation and does not accumulate in inflammatory cells. Therefore, this radiotracer could exhibit higher specificity in diagnosis and staging, along with more accurate monitoring of therapy response at early stages in the treatment cycle. This review summarises and evaluates published studies on the clinical use of [18F]FLT to diagnose, stage and assess response to therapy in lung cancer.
Original languageEnglish
Article number90
Number of pages21
JournalInsights into Imaging
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Jul 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding
This review was supported by funding provided by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Cultural Bureau in London, UK. We also gratefully acknowledge Friends of Anchor for their generous financial support of our research.
Availability of data and materials
The datasets used and/or analyses during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Keywords

  • Positron emission tomography
  • PET
  • Lung cancer
  • Fluorothymidine
  • [18F]FLT

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