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Basic Science Investigations |
Molecular Imaging Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
| ABSTRACT |
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Key Words: 11C-DASB serotonin transporter dosimetry whole-body biodistribution PET
| INTRODUCTION |
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Several PET radioligands for SERT are available to measure regional SERT levels in the brain (9). The radioligand 3-amino-4-(2-dimethylaminomethyl-phenylsulfanyl)-benzonitrile (DASB), labeled with 11C in the N-methyl position, is arguably the best for PET of SERT in the human brain (913). 11C-DASB has high affinity and selectivity, displaying moderately high specific-to-nonspecific ratios in vivo (1012), and 11C-DASB PET data allow accurate quantification of SERT binding parameters (12,13). Radiation dosimetry estimates based on whole-body distribution of activity in rats (14) and monkeys (15) were recently reported for 11C-DASB. Because of likely species differences (15,16), the present study was performed with whole-body PET on healthy human subjects to measure organ activities and estimate the associated radiation-absorbed doses.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Subjects
The study was approved by the Radiation Safety Committee of the National Institutes of Health and the Institutional Review Board of the National Institute of Mental Health. Two male and 5 female healthy volunteers (age, 35 ± 11 y [range, 2250 y]; weight, 72 ± 12 kg) participated in the study after providing written informed consent. All subjects were free of medical or neuropsychiatric illness on the basis of a screening assessment comprising history, physical examination, routine blood and urine tests, and electrocardiography. Within 3 mo before and approximately 24 h after tracer administration, every subject underwent standard laboratory tests including complete blood count; serum chemistries; thyroid, liver, and kidney function tests; and urinalysis.
PET Data Acquisition
One preinjection transmission scan and serial dynamic emission scans were obtained with an Advance tomograph (General Electric Medical Systems). The scanner was cross-calibrated weekly to a well counter with a known activity of 18F in a 16-cm-diameter cylindric phantom. In addition, the camera was checked daily for constancy with a 137Cs source. Imaging of each subject comprised 7 consecutive sections of the body from head to mid thigh. Each subject was positioned with head fixation devices and elastic body-restraining bandages to minimize head and body movement during each scan. Electrocardiography findings, blood pressure, and heart and respiration rates were monitored for all subjects during scanning.
Before injection of the radioligand, a 21-min whole-body transmission scan was obtained using 68Ge rods for subsequent attenuation correction of the corresponding emission images. The dynamic emission scan of 14 frames was acquired after intravenous administration of 669 ± 97 MBq (18.1 ± 2.6 mCi) of 11C-DASB. The acquisition of each frame comprised the following: starting an emission scan at the first bed position, for the head; moving the bed caudally to the next section; scanning 7 sections consecutively for the same period, with the bed moved at six 3-s intervals; and taking 13 s to reposition the bed back to the first section after completing that frame. Acquisition of 14 frames (4 x 0.25, 3 x 0.5, 3 x 1, 3 x 2, and 1 x 4 min, x 7 sections, plus intervals for moving the bed between sections) approximated 115 min, except for one subject whose scan was terminated 30 min earlier (2 frames short) because of a need to urinate.
Horizontal tomographic images were compressed in the anteroposterior dimension into a single planar image. The compressed planar images were analyzed with pixelwise modeling software (PMOD, version 2.4; PMOD Group). Our previous study (15) indicated that analysis of such compressed planar images is comparable to that of tomographic images, but with a slight overestimation (i.e., conservative calculation) of organ radiation burden. Regions of interest were drawn in source organs that could be identified: brain, lungs, heart, liver, gallbladder, spleen, kidneys, and urinary bladder. Generous regions of interest were placed to ensure that all accumulated radioactivity in each organ was encompassed. Activity in the remainder of the body was calculated at each time point by subtracting that present in the identified source organs from the decayed value of the injected activity.
Residence Time Calculation
Activity in the source organs (nondecay corrected) was expressed as a percentage of the injected dose (%ID) and plotted against time. The area under the timeactivity curve (%ID versus time) for each organ from time zero to infinity is equal to residence time (in hours). The area under the curve was calculated with the trapezoid rule, with the assumptions that there was no activity at time 0 and that after the last time point, activity decreased only by physical decay (i.e., no biologic clearance after the last time point).
Because each whole-body scan consisted of 7 consecutive sections from head to mid thigh, measurements of activities in lower organs (such as the urinary bladder) were later than those for the head, with an interval varying from seconds to minutes depending on the particular section and frame. Thus, we standardized the time points of different sections to the time point of the first section (i.e., that overlying the head) using liner interpolation between the current and adjacent frames. The reason for this standardization was to estimate the remainder-of-body activity, which was calculated as the injected activity decayed to the common time point minus the sum of all source organ activities at that same time point.
Organ-Absorbed Dose
Because no urination was allowed during scanning, the activity overlying the bladder represented the total urinary excretion. The mean cumulative urine activity curve of 7 subjects was fitted with a monoexponential curve, and the total excretion in urine in terms of fraction of the injected dose and biologic half-life was determined. The dynamic bladder model (17), implemented in MIRDOSE3.1 (Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education), was applied to calculate residence time with several voiding intervals: 0.6, 1.2, 2.4, and 4.8 h. Organ-absorbed doses were based on the MIRD scheme (18) of a 70-kg adult, using the residence times calculated above.
| RESULTS |
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Brain, lungs, heart, liver, gallbladder, spleen, kidneys, and urinary bladder were visually identified as organs with moderate to high activities (Fig. 1). Uptake of 11C-DASB in the lungs was strikingly high, with a peak of 53.1 %ID, always measured in the first whole-body scan and typically from 18 to 46 s after injection. Peak uptake in the heart, liver, brain, kidneys, and spleen was 5.3%, 4.3%, 4.0%, 1.4%, and 0.8 %ID, respectively, and all occurred within 10 min. The maximal uptake in the gallbladder was 0.3 %ID, occurring at 32 min. Figure 2 displays timeactivity curves for these organs at the average time points at which they were imaged.
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| DISCUSSION |
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7,104 MBq (
192 mCi) of 11C-DASB per subject per year. In other words, this limit allows as many as 12 injections of 555 MBq (15 mCi) to a subject within a year.
In the present study, the injected mass doses of DASB (
29.5 nmol) produced no change in vital signs or in the results of electrocardiography and standard laboratory tests. Therefore, 11C-DASB appears to be safe from both pharmacologic and radiation perspectives.
The present study used a PET protocol similar to that for our monkey study (15) but with a few improvements: increasing the number of subjects studied, identifying the heart as an additional source organ, and separating gallbladder from liver because of its cumulated activity and excretion of this radionuclide (1416). The value of the effective dose presented here (7.0 µSv/MBq) is slightly higher than the values reported for monkeys (6.4 µSv/MBq) and rats (5.5 µSv/MBq) (14,15). This discrepancy may be attributable to species differences in the pharmacokinetics of 11C-DASB (15,16). Obviously, the major contributor to the difference in biodistribution of this radioligand was lung uptake, which reached a maximum of 53.1 %ID immediately after injection in humans but only 24 %ID at approximately 1.5 min in monkeys (15) and only 6 %ID in rats (14). High uptake in human lungs has been reported for the other SERT radioligands, such as 11C-labeled (+)-6ß-(4-methylthiophenyl)-1,2,3,5,6
, 10ß-hexahydropyrrolo (2,1-a)isoquinoline and 11C-labeled cyanoimipramine (20), as well as monoamine transporter radioligand 123I-labeled methyl 3ß-(4-iodophenyl)tropane-2ß-carboxylate (21), but not in rodent lungs for 11C-labeled dapoxetine-HCl (22). The potential mechanisms underlying such a high uptake of SERT radioligands in human lungs include specific binding on pulmonary membranes for the uptake of circulating 5-HT, nonspecific binding, and a large blood volume (2325). Nevertheless, washout of 11C-DASB from human lungs was fast and decreased by more than 50% within 10 min, thereby reducing the radiation burden to this organ.
In contrast to the lungs, other organs had a relatively lower radiation burden. The second-highest organ dose was to the urinary bladder wall (12.0 µGy/MBq, or 44.3 mrad/mCi, with a voiding interval of 2.4 h). This dose from the human study is relatively lower than doses derived from monkey (25.0 µGy/MBq) and rat (32.2 µGy/MBq) studies (14,15). We could not visualize the 11C-DASB activity in the gastrointestinal tract within the time frame of imaging acquisition. Because only a small proportion (up to 12%) of activity is excreted via the urinary tract, and activity was clearly seen in the liver and gallbladder, one would presume that most activity was excreted via the gastrointestinal tract but after substantial physical decay.
| CONCLUSION |
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| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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For correspondence or reprints contact: Jian-Qiang Lu, MD, PhD, Molecular Imaging Branch, NIMH, National Institutes of Health, Bldg. 1, Room B3-10, 1 Center Dr., MSC 0135, Bethesda, MD 20892-0135.
E-mail: lujq{at}intra.nimh.nih.gov
| REFERENCES |
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