Media notice
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
What:
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute have developed and tested a new imaging method that enables specific detection of Aspergillus fumigatus Detect fungal infections in the future without the need for invasive procedures. Delays in diagnosing fungal infections caused by Aspergillus and other fungi can lead to more severe illness or even death in immunocompromised patients.
Due to their presence in the environment, many fungi developed the ability to use energy sources other than glucose, for example by breaking down complex sugars into simple sugars for energy. Aspergillus can break down a specific sugar, cellobiose, into two glucose molecules, something most other microbes and human cells cannot do. The researchers developed a radioactive version of cellobiose that, when injected into the blood, can be visualized in the body using positron emission tomography (PET) scanners.
In this study, radioactive cellobiose ((18F)-fluorocellobiose, (18F)-FCB) was injected into mice with fungal infections, which were then imaged using a special PET scanner for small animals. The mice showed an accumulation of radioactivity, while mice with bacterial infections or non-infectious inflammation did not.
The researchers also found that the same radioactive tracer (18F)-FCB can determine whether mice with fungal infections respond to treatment by using PET images taken before and after treatment.
The study was funded by the Center for Infectious Disease Imaging (CIDI), a joint initiative of Radiology and Imaging Sciences (RIS) at the NIH Clinical Center and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in collaboration with the Chemistry and Synthesis Center (CSC) at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
WHO:
Dima A. Hammoud, MD, Lifetime Senior Investigator, NIH Clinical Center
Article:
Dima A. Hammoud, MD, et al. Development and preclinical validation of 2-deoxy 2-(18F) fluorocellobiose as an Aspergillus-specific PET tracer. Scientific translational medicine. August 14, 2024. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adl5934.
About the NIH Clinical Center (CC): The NIH Clinical Center is the world’s largest hospital devoted exclusively to clinical research. It is a national resource that enables scientific observations and laboratory discoveries to be rapidly translated into new approaches to diagnosing, treating and preventing disease. More than 1,600 clinical research studies are conducted at the NIH Clinical Center, including studies on cancer, infectious diseases, blood disorders, heart disease, lung disease, alcoholism and drug abuse. For more information about the Clinical Center, visit www.cc.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 institutes and centers and is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency that conducts and supports basic medical research, clinical research, and translational research, investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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