18 F-ML-10 PET/CT imaging in early evaluation of doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity / 中华核医学与分子影像杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the feasibility of early monitoring doxorubicin ( DOX)-induced cardiotoxicity by apoptosis molecular imaging of 2-(5-[18F]fluoro-pentyl)-2-methyl-malonic acid (18F-ML-10) PET/CT. Methods Forty-seven BALB/c mice were randomly divided into the chemotherapy group ( n=30) and the control group ( n=17) according to the random number table. The mice in chemotherapy group were intraperitoneally injected with DOX ( 4 mg/kg) once a week for 3 weeks and mice in the control group were injected with the same amount of normal saline. All mice were subjected to 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose ( FDG) and 18 F-ML-10 PET/CT imaging at day 0, 2, 9, 16, and left ventricular ejection fraction ( LVEF) was continuously monitored using cine cardiac MR (cine-CMR) imaging. The region of interest (ROI) was delin-eated on PET/CT images, and the maximum percentage activity of injection dose per gram of tissue (％ID/g) was calculated. The mice were sacrificed after imaging, and the heart tissue was taken for HE staining and TdT-mediated dUTP nick end labeling ( TUNEL) assay. One-way analysis of variance, independent-samples t test and Pearson correlation analysis were used to analyze the data. Results In the chemotherapy group, the myocardial 18F-FDG uptake on day 0, 2, 9, 16 were (63.3±14.5), (93.7±24. 0), (153.6±20.6) and (135.8±32.5) ％ID/g respectively, and 18F-ML-10 uptake were (0.09±0.02), (0.18±0.03), (0.22± 0. 04) and (0.55±0.12) ％ID/g respectively. Compared with baseline (day 0), 18F-FDG and 18F-ML-10 uptake were significantly increased in the chemotherapy group at each time point after DOX administration (F=6.823, 20.848, both P<0.01). The myocardial 18F-ML-10 and 18F-FDG uptake were essentially un-changed at all time points in the control group(F=2.036, 1.155, both P>0.05). TUNEL and HE staining indicated that the cardiomyocytes in the chemotherapy group showed obvious apoptosis and vacuolization, and the apoptotic index (AI) was positively correlated with the 18F-ML-10 uptake (r=0.950, P<0. 01). The cine-CMR imaging results showed that the LVEF in the chemotherapy group continued to decrease after DOX administration (F=4.507, P<0.05), and significant difference was identified at day 16 (t=2.980, P<0.05). There was a significant negative correlation between 18F-ML-10 uptake and LVEF (r=-0.709, P=0. 01) . Conclusions Both 18 F-FDG and 18 F-ML-10 PET/CT imaging can early assess DOX-induced car-diotoxicity in vivo. Given the high targeting specificity of 18 F-ML-10, it may have a greater clinical transfor-mation advantage over 18 F-FDG in early assessment of cardiotoxicity.