Endocrine Abstracts

Positron emission tomography (PET) using the glucose analog tracer fluoro-deoxy-glucose (FDG) is today a widely available and highly useful functional imaging modality. Thus, FDG-PET has proved its clinical worth in particularly malignancy detection and treatment monitoring and is now often a first-line choice in the diagnostics of a range of diseases. However, PET is also an excellent tool for non-invasive measurement of metabolic processes, pathophysiology and pharmacokinetics, since virtually any molecule, drug or metabolite can be labeled with a PET-isotope. Simultaneous measurement of tracer input coupled with detection of tracer buildup in various organs or tissues of interests allows for accurate tracer kinetics and therefore also of tracer transfer between tissue compartments. In this talk, I will cover the basic set-up of metabolic PET as it is practiced in a tertiary university unit. Different approaches to basic research questions as well as some basic kinetic models will be presented with examples drawn from our own experience coupled with recent interesting studies from other centres. Finally, the use of PET to image tissue ketone body utilization (by 11C-hydroxybutyrate), peripheral organ damage in early Parkinsons disease (by 11C-Donepezil), drug pharmacokinetics (by 11C-metformin) and cholinergic signaling in inflammation (by 18F-FEOBV) will be presented. Combined, these examples will highlight the use of PET as a tool to image not only whether tissue is metabolically active (traditional FDG PET) but also as a biomarker suited for precision medicine.