A standard MRI scan (left) failed to detect a pancreatic tumor, whereas the same tumor was clearly visible after an injection of chemically modified glucose (right). (Images from the Frydman lab)
Pancreatic cancer often remains undetected because the pancreas sits deep in the abdominal cavity in a position that can vary from person to person. Now, in research published in Science Advances, Prof. Lucio Frydman and his colleagues in the Department of Chemical and Biological Physics have shown how a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach could make pancreatic tumors “light up” in MRI scans, leading to earlier diagnosis and better treatment outcomes.
In collaboration with Prof. Emeritus Avigdor Scherz of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, they used animal models of aggressive pancreatic cancer and infused a chemically altered glucose tagged with a stable, nonradioactive form of hydrogen called deuterium. Infusion with this “deuterized” glucose prior to scanning improved on traditional MRI, which is not sensitive enough to highlight the presence and location of pancreatic cancer and may generate false negatives that do not always mean the patient is cancer-free.
The new method is based on the way cancer cells digest glucose: unlike in healthy cells, in cancer cells this metabolic process stops at an intermediate point to produce lactate, a molecule believed to play an important role in cancer cell division and proliferation. The scientists found a way to increase the ability of MRI to detect even small amounts of lactate by replacing natural glucose protons with deuterium, thus producing deuterized lactate more easily detected in an MRI scan.
This combined method enhanced sensitivity by more than an order of magnitude, enabling detection of even very tiny amounts of the altered lactate molecules. The altered lactate, in turn, reliably revealed the location of the previously undetectable pancreatic tumors.
Prof. Frydman is now preparing for clinical studies in human patients, to demonstrate that deuterium MRI could be a lifesaving modality for the early diagnosis of hard-to-image cancers. Based on further investigation of how deuterized glucose and other metabolites are absorbed by the cells of individual cancer patients, the new method may eventually help oncologists choose personalized treatments that will generate the best prognosis.
LUCIO FRYDMAN IS SUPPORTED BY:
• The Rising Tide Foundation
• The Bertha and Isadore Gudelsky Professorial Chair
AVIGDOR SCHERZ IS SUPPORTED BY:
• The Thompson Family Foundation
• Sharon Zuckerman
• The Y. Leon Benoziyo Institute for Molecular Medicine
