GE Healthcare, a unit of the General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), today presented interim phase 2 study results of fluciclatide, in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a federal research agency and part of the National Institutes of Health. Fluciclatide is an integrin-targeted radiopharmaceutical under development for oncology PET imaging. Esther Mena, MD, Associate Investigator at the NCI, presented preliminary data on the uptake and retention properties of fluciclatide in solid tumors at the 57th annual meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine in Salt Lake City, Utah.
This phase 2 study is part of a larger multi-site clinical program being conducted in the US, Europe, India and Korea. The goal of the GE Healthcare program is to detect and measure integrin expression in patients with various solid tumor types, including melanoma and renal cell carcinoma.
Dr. Mena presented preliminary data from 10 patients with solid tumors not previously imaged with fluciclatide. Positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) imaging of each patient's target lesion was performed for 60 minutes followed by a static whole-body PET/CT scan. The biodistribution of fluciclatide permitted visual analysis of the target lesion as a means to demonstrate variable solid tumor uptake and retention, sometimes with heterogeneous distribution within the tumor. Mean and maximum tumor and blood pool standardized uptake values (SUVmax/mean) were examined in the trial.
"The development of PET radiopharmaceuticals are important to the clinical community who are seeking a diagnostic work-up that only molecular imaging can provide," said Homer Macapinlac, MD, Chair, Nuclear Medicine, University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. "PET tracers may be useful diagnostic tools for oncologists."