Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Evaluation of therapeutic effects of radiotherapy during treatment of lung adenocarcinoma in mice with positron emission tomography imaging of ¹⁸F-FLT and 18F-FDG

Baolin Qu¹, Hui Wang², Wei Yu¹, Jinming Zhang², Huijuan Zhang¹, Jiahe Tian²

¹Department of Radiation Oncology; ²Department of Nuclear Medicine of PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China.

For correspondence:- Jiahe Tian Email: jiahetianjf@sina.com Tel:+86942648412

Received: 10 March 2015 Accepted: 10 June 2015 Published: 29 July 2015

Citation: Qu B, Wang H, Yu W, Zhang J, Zhang H, Tian J. Evaluation of therapeutic effects of radiotherapy during treatment of lung adenocarcinoma in mice with positron emission tomography imaging of ¹⁸F-FLT and 18F-FDG. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(7):1293-1298 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i7.24

© 2015 The authors.
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Abstract

Purpose: To assess the role of 3'-deoxy-3'-¹⁸F-fluoro-thymidine (¹⁸F-FLT) and 2'-deoxy-2'-¹⁸F-fluoro-deoxy-glucose (¹⁸F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in the evaluation of the therapeutic effects of radiotherapy during treatment of lung adenocarcinoma.

Methods: Eighteen mice with lung adenocarcinoma were randomly divided into 2 groups; each group was randomly paired and evenly divided into three smaller groups, namely, A, B and C. Group A served as the control group without any treatment; mice in group B were received radiotherapy in sites of tumor. A single dose of 2000 cGy, 6MV x-ray was used in this experiment; mice in group C also received radiotherapy at sites of tumors two days before the experiment using the same procedure and dose as group B. Micro PET imaging was taken after intravenous injection of ¹⁸F-FLT and ¹⁸F-FDG through the mice’s tail.

Results: The intake ratio of ¹⁸F-FLT and ¹⁸F-FDG was much higher at the tumor sites. After radiotherapy, ¹⁸F-FLT uptake was significantly lower than that of the control group (p < 0.05), while there was no obvious change of ¹⁸F-FDG uptake. There was a significant decrease in T/NT value of FLT PET imaging group 24 and 48 h after radiotherapy; a significant difference could be seen, compared with that before radiotherapy (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: Change in ¹⁸F-FLT uptake induced by radiotherapy is more sensitive than that of ¹⁸F-FDG. Intake of ¹⁸F-FLT is lowered more significantly after radiotherapy than that of ¹⁸F-FDG, and this can serve as evidence that ¹⁸F-FLT is an effective tracer to monitor the therapeutic effect of radiotherapy on malignant tumors.

Keywords: 3'-deoxy-3'-18F-fluoro-thymidine, 2'-deoxy-2'-18F-fluoro-deoxy-glucose, Radiotherapy, Positron Emission Tomography imaging, Cell proliferation, Lung a