HMN 2025: How PET tracer identifies numerous invasive mould infections behind life-threatening diseases in cancer, transplant sufferers

A novel PET radiotracer can precisely detect a variety of mould species which can be linked to harmful infections, in line with new analysis introduced on the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2025 Annual Meeting and revealed within the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

The imaging agent has the potential to dramatically improve the analysis and monitoring of invasive mould infections in sufferers.

Advances in cancer and immunosuppressive therapies have helped many sufferers reside longer, however additionally they go away extra individuals with weakened immune methods, making invasive mould infections more and more widespread. With mortality charges of invasive mould infections reaching as much as 85%, early and correct analysis adopted by well timed remedy is vital to enhancing affected person outcomes.

“Currently it’s extremely tough to detect invasive mould infections,” stated Carlos Ruiz-Gonzalez, MD, a postdoctoral analysis fellow at Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, Maryland.

“Definitive analysis usually will depend on invasive procedures or on biomarkers that lack sensitivity for a lot of mould species. In this study, we aimed to develop a PET tracer able to detecting a broad vary of mould infections and distinguishing them from irritation with excessive sensitivity and specificity.”

The imaging agent, ¹⁸F-FDS, was first evaluated in vitro to find out its skill to detect 30 totally different strains of disease-causing molds collected from contaminated sufferers. ¹⁸F-FDS PET/CT was then carried out to determine fungal infections in mice with weakened immune methods, in addition to in 4 human sufferers with confirmed invasive mould infections, and 5 {control} sufferers with inflammatory illnesses or cancer, however no infections.

¹⁸F-FDS was discovered to shortly and particularly accumulate inside a variety of disease-causing molds (together with drug-resistant strains) whereas exhibiting no uptake in heat-killed molds or human cells. Among mice, it precisely recognized fungal infections within the lungs, mind, and sinuses, and was in a position to distinguish these from non-infectious irritation.

In affected person research, ¹⁸F-FDS PET safely detected and localized mould infections—together with one missed by a earlier mind MRI.

“This analysis demonstrates that ¹⁸F-FDS PET is a promising, noninvasive diagnostic device to detect mold-related invasive fungal illnesses,” famous Ruiz-Gonzalez.

“What’s extra, since ¹⁸F-FDS could be simply produced from ¹⁸F-FDG, it may be synthesized on demand and made obtainable globally. This can have an actual impression for sufferers world wide.”

Provided by
Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging