A new PET radiotracer can differentiate diseased tissues from healthy tissues based on fructose metabolism, according to new research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Fructose metabolism—or fructolysis—is indicative of a variety of diseases, and by noninvasively mapping fructolysis physicians can more accurately detect diseases and treat them earlier.
With this new fructose-based imaging dye, researchers compared 4FDF to the clinical standard for glucose mapping, FDG, in a mouse model. Like FDG, 4FDF accumulated in tumor tissue, but unlike FDG, it did not accumulate in healthy brain or healthy heart, two organs with very high FDG uptake. When inflammation was induced in the brain and heart, both organs showed strong 4FDF signals. Bone uptake was minimized with 4FDF, further supporting the need for specific mapping of tissues that have undergone the glucose-to-fructose fuel switch that is a signature of heart and brain diseases.
https://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/65/3/475
