Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 14, Issue 31, 2008

This is the fifth issue of Current Pharmaceutical Design discussing applications of PET and SPECT in drug development. The initial issue (Vol.6, No.16, 2000) described methods for measuring the deposition, biodistribution and pharmacokinetics of drugs including their interactions with specific targets. The second issue (Vol.8, No.16, 2002) focused on the interface between nuclear medicine and molecular biology. A third Read More

It is important to gain more insight into neurodegenerative diseases, because these debilitating diseases can not be cured. A common characteristic of many neurological diseases is neuroinflammation, which is accompanied by the presence of activated microglia cells. In activated microglia cells, an increase in the expression of peripheral benzodiazepine receptors (PBR) can be found. The PBR was suggested as a t Read More

The current gold standard for imaging infection is radiolabeled white blood cells. For reasons of safety, simplicity and cost, it would be desirable to have a receptor-specific ligand that could be used for imaging infection and that would allow a differential diagnosis between sterile and septic inflammatory processes. Ligands tested for this purpose include labeled peptides (99mTc-labeled f-Met-Leu-Phe, 123I-IL-1ra, 99mTc-IL-8, Read More

FDG, the most common radiopharmaceutical for PET imaging in oncology, is not tumor-specific. Significant tracer accumulation can also occur in viral, bacterial and fungal infections, in other forms of inflammatory tissue and in brown fat. FDG accumulation in inflammatory tissue may cause false positives during cancer screening and false classification as a nonresponder during drug treatment. Yet, discrimination between be Read More

Receptor imaging by means of positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) may non-invasively address questions that are essential to the development and the clinical application of drugs targeting receptors expressed on human malignancies : is the receptor targeting drug getting to the tumor in the required concentration, is there a heterogeneity in tumor uptak Read More

Many new targeted anticancer drugs have been developed. In order for these drugs to be effective, the tumor target has to be present during treatment. Currently there are only a few biomarkers available to help the physician select the appropriate targeted drug for the patient and often tumor tissue is required for biomarker assays. Immunoscintigraphy might be able to improve diagnostic imaging, to guide antibody base Read More

Cerebral cannabinoid receptor (CB1) and cannabinoid drugs constitute a vibrant field in modern medicine and pharmacology. However, the physiological and pharmacological roles played by the cannabinoid receptor in the central nervous system are still not fully understood. Positron-emission tomography (PET) is the most advanced technique for non-invasive research of cerebral receptors. Quantitative PET imaging o Read More