Ricerc@Sapienza

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the performance of whole-body diffusion-weighted imaging (WB-DWI), whole-body positron emission tomography with computed tomography (WB-PET/CT), and whole-body positron emission tomography with magnetic resonance imaging (WB-PET/MRI) in staging patients with untreated invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast. Fifty-one women with newly diagnosed invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast underwent WB-DWI, WB-PET/CT and WB-PET/MRI before treatment.

[18F]FDG PET is currently the most commonly used functional imaging method for the in vivo investigation of regional brain metabolism in clinical practice. PET/CT scanners are widely available in Europe, in the US, in Australia, and most of the rest of the world [1] and the clinical role of [18F]FDG brain PET can be regarded as established for a number of diagnostic challenges in Neurology and Psychiatry [2].

Background:Differences in genetics and receptor expression (phenotypes) of invasive ductal breast cancer (IDC) impact on prognosis and treatment response. Immunohistochemistry (IHC), the most used technique for IDC phenotyping, has some limitations including its invasiveness.

Modern molecular nuclear medicine is rapidly developing in the field of imaging of chronic inflammatory diseases, and many new radiopharmaceuticals have been recently described and tested in animals and man. These can detect early pathophysiological changes before the development of anatomical changes and, often, before clinical onset of symptoms. This field includes new radiopharmaceuticals for SPECT and PET use to define new strategies for imaging immune cells as well as tissue modifications induced by the inflammatory process.

Nuclear medicine offers several techniques and procedures to image infection, but radiolabelled autologous white blood cells (WBCs) are still the gold standard. These cells are usually labelled with 111In or 99mTc bound to a hydrophobic chelating agent that allows these isotopes to pass through the plasma membrane and enter in the cytoplasm. The most common compound in Europe is HMPAO that efficiently chelates 99mTc. However, up to 20-40% of the complex is released from the cells in the first few hours.

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis of implant-associated infection is challenging. Several radiopharmaceuticals have been described but direct comparisons are limited. Here we compared in vitro and in an animal model Tc-99m-IJIBI, Tc-99m-cipmfloxacin, (TcN)-Tc-99m-CipmCS(2) and In-111-DTPA-biotin for targeting E. coli (ATCC 25922) and S. aureus (ATCC 43335).METHODS: Stability controls were performed with the labelled radiopharmaceuticals during 6 hours in saline and serum. The in vitro binding to viable or killed bacteria was evaluated at 37 degrees C and 4 degrees C.