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New scan to track skin cancer early undergoing trials
Reported October 06, 2009
SYDNEY - A new imaging agent could help to save innumerable lives by
tracking melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, at an early stage.
Ivan Greguric and colleagues working within the Cooperative Research
Consortium (CRC) for Biomedical Imaging Development note that about 130,000
new cases of malignant melanoma occur worldwide every year.
Patients have the best chance of survival with early diagnosis and prompt
treatment. However, positron emission tomography (PET) scans used for
diagnosis sometimes miss small cancers, delaying diagnosis and treatment.
The scientists’ search for better ways of diagnosis led them to a new group
of radioactive imaging agents, called fluoronicotinamides, which they tested
in lab mice that had melanoma.
The most promising substance revealed melanoma cells with greater accuracy
than imaging agents now in use, the scientists note.
As a result, this substance could become a “superior” PET imaging agent for
improving the diagnosis and monitoring the effectiveness of treatment of
melanoma, they say.
Clinical trials with this new agent are now scheduled for 2010, said a CRC
release.
Source : September issue of the Journal of the Medicinal Chemistry |
