This Month in JNM

Imaging tumor hypoxia: Chitneni and colleagues focus on molecular imaging of hypoxia, reviewing recent advances in optical and PET approaches. Page 165

Assessing liver function: Gholam and Lee look at the challenges of quantitative measurement of liver function and preview an article in this issue of JNM comparing nuclear imaging techniques. Page 169

Standardizing quantitative imaging: Buckler and Boellaard discuss the need for collaborative efforts to make imaging results widely comparable across institutional and geographic barriers and introduce 2 articles in this issue of JNM contributing to this effort. Page 171

Early PIB perfusion: Rostomian and colleagues investigate whether early frames of ¹¹C-Pittsburgh compound-B PET data can provide information reflecting perfusion and correlating with ¹⁸F-FDG PET and cognitive status in patients with Alzheimer disease or frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Page 173

PET and neck lymph nodes: Liao and colleagues evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of ¹⁸F-FDG PET in detection of neck lymph node metastases and in pretreatment risk stratification in patients with oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma. Page 180

PET and MRI in brain stem glioma: Zukotynski and colleagues assess ¹⁸F-FDG uptake in children with newly diagnosed diffuse intrinsic brain stem glioma and correlate imaging results with survival data and MR diffusion imaging data. Page 188

CT attenuation correction for MPI: Pazhenkottil and colleagues determine the impact of attenuation correction with CT on the prognostic value of SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging in patients with known or suspected cardiac disease. Page 196

¹¹C-MET in the young brain: Nagata and colleagues determine the uptake of ¹¹C-methionine in the normal brain of patients younger than 20 y and note differences that can be referenced to provide more accurate PET diagnoses in young patients. Page 201

Assessing ventilation distribution: Borges and colleagues compare PET using ⁶⁸Ga-labeled pseudogas (Gallgas) with standard SPECT using Technegas in a porcine model with different degrees of ventilation inhomogeneity. Page 206

Cardiac camera update: Garcia and colleagues provide an educational overview and comparison of new solid-state ultrafast cardiocentric imaging devices and conventional dual-detector rotating SPECT cameras and describe current clinical trials with the newer devices. Page 210

SUV variation from calibrations: Lockhart and colleagues measure errors introduced by regular calibration of PET/CT scanners and introduce procedures to minimize the effect of calibration error on standardized uptake value assessments. Page 218

Tumor response to 3-BrPA: Liapi and colleagues describe the effects of 3-bromopyruvate on tumor glucose metabolism using PET/CT at multiple time points after treatment in a VX2 tumor model of liver cancer. Page 225

PET and vandetanib: Walter and colleagues explore whether metabolic imaging with PET allows noninvasive detection of response to treatment with this RET-inhibitor in an animal model of thyroid cancer. Page 231

PET and EphB4 receptors: Xiong and colleagues evaluate a novel ⁶⁴Cu-labeled peptide with high receptor binding affinity for PET of EphB4 receptors, which are overexpressed in most solid tumors. Page 241

Imaging gastrointestinal drug absorption: Yamashita and colleagues assess the process of gastrointestinal drug absorption in rats using PET and discuss the implications of their methodology for the drug discovery and development process. Page 249

Microglial activation and minocycline: Converse and colleagues describe methodologies for studying microglial activation and therapeutic downregulation in response to minocycline by means of noninvasive imaging and describe potential utility in therapies for multiple sclerosis. Page 257

(R)-¹¹C-rolipram cardiac PET: Thomas and colleagues use small-animal PET to characterize the binding of this phosphodiesterase 4–selective inhibitor in the rat myocardium in vivo Page 263

¹⁸F-labeled bombesin analog for PET: Honer and colleagues report on in vitro and in vivo studies providing favorable preclinical data on specific and effective tumor targeting by ¹⁸F-BAY 86-4367, with promise for clinical PET in prostate carcinoma. Page 270

Activatable cell-penetrating peptides: van Duijnhoven and colleagues describe the development of these probes and modification for sensitivity to matrix metalloproteinase-2 and -9 for nuclear imaging purposes. Page 279

Novel ¹¹C PET tracer: Deng and colleagues describe the radiosynthesis and biologic evaluation of S-¹¹C-methyl-L-cysteine as a potential amino acid PET tracer for tumor imaging and for differentiation of tumor from inflammation. Page 287

Hepatic function during regeneration: de Graaf and colleagues compare ^99mTc-galactosyl human serum albumin scintigraphy, ^99mTc-mebrofenin hepatobiliary scintigraphy, indocyanine green clearance, and galactose elimination capacity in assessment of hepatic function during liver regeneration in rats. Page 294

International PET/CT variation: Beyer and colleagues summarize the results of a worldwide survey designed to gather data on clinical PET/CT operations for use in perspective and discussions on standardization. Page 303

Variations in PET/CT methodology: Graham and colleagues report on the results of a survey of oncologic imaging at U.S. academic medical centers to determine and characterize variability in clinical and research PET/CT methodologies. Page 311

Pediatric guidelines: Gelfand and colleagues describe the process by which the Pediatric Nuclear Medicine Dose Reduction Workgroup arrived at new consensus guidelines for pediatric administered doses for 9 commonly used radiopharmaceuticals. Page 318

Credentialing statement: In a conjoint statement, the SNM, American College of Nuclear Medicine, and American Board of Nuclear Medicine recommend minimum training requirements for therapeutic procedures using radiopharmaceuticals. Page 323

ON THE COVER

The RET protooncogene triggers multiple intracellular signaling cascades regulating cell cycle progression and cellular metabolism. Metabolic imaging allows noninvasive detection of response to the RET inhibitor vandetanib in vivo and may permit identification of patients who respond to vandetanib early in the course of treatment.

See page 232.

• © 2011 by Society of Nuclear Medicine