The Minnies
Best Radiology Image
Winner: PET of patient with grade III glioma using iodine-124 (I-124) CLR1404 radiopharmaceutical
This year’s Best Radiology Image award went to researchers from the University of Wisconsin for their image series demonstrating a new PET radiopharmaceutical for brain imaging. They believe the agent could more effective than nuclear medicine’s workhorse tracer, FDG.
The team led by Dr. Lance Hall, an assistant professor of radiology at the university’s UW Health system, has been investigating iodine-124 (I-124) CLR1404, which is being developed for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
A patient with a grade III glioma was scanned using an iodine-124 (I-124) CLR1404 radiopharmaceutical. PET with CLR1404 detected the cancer, and fused PET/MRI delineated the tumor. Images courtesy of Dr. Lance Hall and the University of Wisconsin’s UW Health.
CLR1404 is designed to enter cells through membrane lipid rafts, which are overexpressed in cancer cells and serve as a platform for cell proliferation. The agent is taken up by cancer stem cells, which are difficult to eradicate and can lead to disease recurrence and progression if they are not eliminated.
Studies in preclinical models have demonstrated that CLR1404 is more cancer-specific and targets cancers rather than inflammation or false positives that might be found on FDG-PET scans. In the study that resulted in the award-winning images, 16 patients with primary or metastatic brain tumors were injected with the radiopharmaceutical.
CLR1404 successfully imaged tumors with high tumor-to-background uptake and uncovered larger tumor volumes than contrast-enhanced MRI, the researchers found. There was no significant uptake of CLR1404 in normal areas of the brain and no uptake in regions that were treated for cancer and were presumably tumor-free.
The Minnies are AuntMinnie.com’s annual event recognizing excellence in radiology. First launched in 2000, the Minnies gives radiology professionals the opportunity to highlight the contributions of their peers to the advancement of medical imaging. In the 2014 edition of the Minnies, over 200 candidates faced off in 15 categories, ranging from Most Influential Radiology Researcher to Best Radiology Image. The full list of Minnies winners can be viewed at minnies.auntminnie.com.