This Month in JNM

Focus on the heart: Bengel provides an overview of promising techniques and potential challenges in cardiovascular molecular imaging to assess and predict disease, guide and monitor therapy, and translate novel approaches into routine clinical practice.
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Imaging CNS inflammation: Lopresti and Mason review current methods and tracers for assessing central nervous system inflammation and preview an article in this issue of JNM on the use of 2-¹⁸F-fluoroacetate as an indicator of glial cell metabolism.
Page 841

Refining PET/CT in obese patients: Masuda and colleagues evaluate the effects of adjusting injected dose or acquisition time on the quality of ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT images of overweight patients.
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Thymic uptake of ¹⁸F-FDG: Jerushalmi and colleagues characterize the incidence, patterns, and intensity of thymic ¹⁸F-FDG uptake in relation to age and time elapsed after cancer treatment in a large cohort of patients.
Page 849

Timing vascular inflammation imaging: Menezes and colleagues report on studies to determine the ideal timing for PET/CT assessment of vascular uptake after injection of ¹⁸F-FDG.
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Prediction in neuroendocrine metastases: Garin and colleagues explore the utility of ¹⁸F-FDG PET and somatostatin receptor scintigraphy in predicting early disease progression and survival in patients with metastatic neuroendocrine tumors.
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SPECT/CT in prostate cancer: Vermeeren and colleagues investigate the value of SPECT/CT for detection and anatomic localization of sentinel nodes before laparoscopic sentinel node lymphadenectomy in prostate carcinoma and compare the results with those from planar imaging.
Page 865

¹³¹I-lipiodol in hepatocellular cancer: Marelli and colleagues compare the effects of ¹³¹I-lipiodol treatment with those from transarterial chemoembolization or transarterial embolization in improving survival in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.
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¹⁸F-FDG and PiB in dementia: Lowe and colleagues evaluate the comparative diagnostic performances of Pittsburgh Compound B and ¹⁸F-FDG in PET assessment of several subtypes of early cognitive impairment.
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Antihistamines and cerebral H₁ receptors: Senda and colleagues use ¹¹C-doxepin PET to explore the effects of repeated administration of an antihistamine on the cerebral H₁ receptor and discuss resulting implications for PET in advancing new drug development.
Page 887

¹⁸F-FDOPA PET in Parkinson disease: Jokinen and colleagues compare subregional striatal PET data from nonmedicated patients with early Parkinson disease and from healthy elderly volunteers to determine whether a simple ratio approach can reliably differentiate and identify early disease.
Page 893

PET and 5-HT₄ receptors: Marner and colleagues evaluate a technique for PET imaging and noninvasive quantification of serotonin-4 receptors using a novel ligand, ¹¹C-SB207145, and arterial input calculations.
Page 900

Identifying tracheal shine-through: Abdul-Fatah and colleagues describe a potentially confounding phenomenon resulting from the high energy and long range of positrons in ¹²⁴I PET/CT imaging in differentiated thyroid cancer.
Page 909

Skeletal muscle uptake of ¹⁸F-6FDG: Spring-Robinson and colleagues evaluate the biodistribution of a nonphosphorylated glucose transport radiotracer for PET imaging, with a focus on sensitivity to insulin stimulation.
Page 912

¹⁸F-FDG uptake in RA: Matsui and colleagues report on in vitro and in vivo studies describing the correlation between ¹⁸F-FDG accumulation and rheumatoid arthritis pathology and outline the potential for PET in quantifying inflammatory activity.
Page 920

Quantifying cell survival with ¹¹¹In: Blackwood and colleagues detail studies on cell labeling with ¹¹¹In for SPECT monitoring of transplanted cell viability in a canine myocardial infarction model.
Page 927

Internalization of sst₂ receptors: Waser and colleagues provide in vivo evidence of agonist-induced internalization of somatostatin-2 receptors and discuss the significance for targeted peptide receptor imaging of tumors.
Page 936

HIF-1 tumor hypoxia imaging: Kudo and colleagues assess the feasibility of a novel radiolabeled fusion protein, ¹²³I-POS, as an imaging probe for hypoxia-inducible factor-1, which plays a role in malignant tumor progression and resistance to radiotherapy.
Page 942

⁶⁴Cu-ATSM in muscles and tendons: Skovgaard and colleagues investigate exercise-related changes in oxygenation in rat skeletal muscles and tendons with hypoxia-selective ⁶⁴Cu-ATSM PET/CT and describe accompanying changes in gene expression of 2 hypoxia-related genes.
Page 950

CT imaging of plaque inflammation: Hyafil and colleagues correlate the intensity of iodine-based contrast agent N1177 CT enhancement with ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT detection of inflammatory activity and histologic assessment of macrophage densityin a rabbit model of atherosclerosis.
Page 959

¹⁸F-FDG rate constants in mouse brain: Yu and colleagues evaluate various methods for estimating the metabolic rate of glucose use in the mouse brain with small-animal PET and reliable blood curves derived by a microfluidic blood sampler.
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⁸⁹Zr-trastuzumab for HER2 immunoPET: Dijkers and colleagues describe the development of and comparative studies with a clinical-grade radiolabeled trastuzumab for HER2/neu immunoPET imaging, with applications in improved diagnosis, antibody-based therapy, and early antibody development.
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¹⁸F-FAC PET in neuroinflammation: Marik and colleagues investigate the use of ¹⁸F-FAC as a specific PET tracer of glial cell metabolism in rodent models of glioblastoma, focal ischemia, and ischemia–hypoxia.
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Radiolabeling using chelated Al-¹⁸F: McBride and colleagues detail an efficient and easy method for radiolabeling a diverse array of molecules with ¹⁸F for PET imaging.
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Nonradiolabeled molecular imaging: Gore and colleagues review the physical limitations of and potential opportunities for molecular imaging with MRI, CT, and ultrasound and point to the most promising areas for multimodal contrast agents.
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ON THE COVER

Peptide receptor imaging is based on agonist-induced internalization of peptide receptors in tumor cells. Compared with control rats (left), rats sacrificed at 2.5 min (middle) and 1 h (right) after TATE injection showed internalization of sst₂ in AR24J tumors on R2-88 immunohistochemistry. This molecular process is likely responsible for the uptake of sst₂ radioligands seen in vivo in sst₂-expressing tumors.

See page 940.