POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY STUDY OF HUMAN PROSTATIC ADENOCARCINOMA USING C-11 PUTRESCINE

To evaluate [1-C-11]putrescine ([C-11]PUT) as a potential tracer for i maging and characterization of human prostatic adenocarcinoma, positro n emission tomography (PET) was performed in eight patients and three normal controls. In addition, four of the patients and the three norma l controls also had a prostate scan with 2-deoxy-2-[F-18]fluoro-D-gluc ose ((18)FDG). Three of the patients had undergone resection of the pr ostate tumor and all of the patients except for one had bone metastasi s. Carbon-11 rapidly accumulated in prostate, bone and rectum after in jection of [C-11]PUT. Maximal uptake was achieved 5 min after injectio n with minimal washout during the 50 min study period. The uptake of c arbon-ii in the prostate of normal controls was significantly higher t han that in the patients. However, three of the four patients scanned for metastatic bone lesions showed higher uptake in bone metastasis th an in normal bone. Quantitation of (18)FDG uptake in the prostate was hindered by the high accumulation of activity in the urinary bladder. [C-11]PUT does not appear to be a useful tracer for assessing prolifer ation of human prostate adenocarcinoma. Its utility in the imaging of other cancers with high polyamine concentration remains to be investig ated.