Quantification of metabotropic glutamate subtype 5 receptors in brain by an equilibrium method using 18F-SP203

摘要

A new PET ligand, 3-fluoro-5-(2-(2-¹⁸F-(fluoromethyl)-thiazol-4-yl)ethynyl)benzonitrile (¹⁸F-SP203) can quantify metabotropic glutamate subtype 5 receptors (mGluR5) in human brain by a bolus injection and kinetic modeling. As an alternative approach to a bolus injection, binding can simply be measured as a ratio of tissue to metabolite-corrected plasma at a single time point under equilibrium conditions achieved by administering the radioligand with a bolus injection followed by a constant infusion. The purpose of this study was to validate the equilibrium method as an alternative to the standard kinetic method for measuring ¹⁸F-SP203 binding in brain. Nine healthy subjects were injected with ¹⁸F-SP203 using a bolus plus constant infusion for 300 minutes. A single ratio of bolus-to-constant infusion (the activity of bolus equaled to that of infusion over 219 minutes) was applied to all subjects to achieve equilibrium in approximately 120 minutes. As a measure of ligand binding, we compared total distribution volume (VT) calculated by the equilibrium and kinetic methods in each scan. The equilibrium method calculated VT by the ratio of radioactivity in brain to the concentration of ¹⁸ F-SP203 in arterial plasma at 120 minutes, and the kinetic method calculated VT by a two-tissue compartment model using brain and plasma dynamic data from 0 to 120 minutes. VT obtained via the equilibrium method was highly correlated with VT obtained via kinetic modeling. Inter-subject variability of VT obtained via the equilibrium method was slightly smaller than VT obtained via the kinetic method. VT obtained via the equilibrium method was ~10% higher than VT obtained via the kinetic method, indicating a small difference between the measurements. Taken together, the results of this study show that using the equilibrium method is an acceptable alternative to the standard kinetic method when using ¹⁸F-SP203 to measure mGluR5. Although small differences in the measurements obtained via the equilibrium and kinetic methods exist, both methods consistently measured mGluR5 as indicated by the highly correlated VT values; the equilibrium method was slightly more precise, as indirectly measured by the smaller coefficient of variability across subjects. In addition, when using ¹⁸F-SP203, the equilibrium method is more efficient because it requires much less data.