@article {FUSHIKI4741, author = {HIROSHI FUSHIKI and SOSUKE MIYOSHI and AKIHIRO NODA and YOSHIHIRO MURAKAMI and HIROSHI SASAKI and MAKOTO JITSUOKA and KEISUKE MITSUOKA and ICHIRO MATSUNARI and SHINTARO NISHIMURA}, title = {Pre-clinical Validation of Orthotopically-implanted Pulmonary Tumor by Imaging with 18F-Fluorothymidine-Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography}, volume = {33}, number = {11}, pages = {4741--4749}, year = {2013}, publisher = {International Institute of Anticancer Research}, abstract = {The development of positron-emission tomography (PET) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) imaging has improved the detection of tumor burden and, in turn, pre-clinical drug development and clinical treatment. In pre-clinical drug development, clinically-relevant murine cancer models, such as orthotopic models of lung cancer, have provided an accurate representation of tumor burden in humans. However, evidence demonstrating the capability of imaging-guided evaluation of these clinically-relevant models is limited. Here, we combined 18F-fluorothymidine (FLT)-PET/CT imaging and a murine model of human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to improve the accuracy of anticancer drug evaluation in pre-clinical studies. We found that FLT-PET/CT imaging enabled the progression of pulmonary tumors to be longitudinally monitored rather than FDG-PET/CT. Furthermore, in an efficacy study of a standard treatment of docetaxel in a murine lung cancer model, FLT-PET imaging detected the anticancer response earlier than volumetric analysis by CT imaging. We, thus, observed a relationship between the alteration of FLT signals and Ki-67 index in the pulmonary tumor during the period of chemotherapy. These results indicate that the combination of FLT-PET/CT imaging and an orthotopic NSCLC model is an effective strategy for evaluating clinical efficacy and potential of an anticancer agent during pre-clinical development.}, issn = {0250-7005}, URL = {https://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/33/11/4741}, eprint = {https://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/33/11/4741.full.pdf}, journal = {Anticancer Research} }