MR Imaging Technique Promises More Reliable Cancer Screening and Diagnosis

The technique can be used to detect the massive native glucose uptake in tumors as they grow. Previously such glucose measurements had to be made using a radio-labeled glucose imaging agent, and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging. The new technique does not require contrast agents and enables closer treatment monitoring.

Scientific Coordinator of GLINT, and inventor of the glucoCEST method Professor Xavier Golay, University College London (London, UK), said, “GLINT offers for the first time a possibility to bring to the clinics a much-touted new imaging technique, allowing to directly image by MRI native, non-labeled glucose the way PET does it using the expensive radio-labeled sugar analogue fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG). This represents among others a huge hope for pediatric patients and for everyone required to undergo continuous surveillance of cancer progression. It also carries the hope to reduce or at least significantly limit the costs of diagnostic cancer imaging.”

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