GlucoCEST Imaging of Neoplastic Tumours

Cancer is one of the most devastating diseases the world is currently facing, accounting for 7.6 million deaths in 2008 (WHO). Cancer is usually detected through advanced medical imaging. Early detection is very important as it increases the chances of survival and the potential for full recovery. Further, The high level of sophistication in treating cancer has led to a new unsolved problem, the differentiation between treatment effect, regrowth or pseudo-progression of the tumour. Here, we aim to develop and bring to the clinic a potentially disruptive new technology to characterize and image glucose delivery, uptake and metabolism in cancer.Recently we managed to demonstrate the sensitivity of a technique, named glucose-based Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (glucoCEST), to detect native (α-D-glucose) glucose uptake in tumours. In addition, recent developments have shown glucose analogues, such as 3-oxy-methyl-D-glucose (3OMG) can be used as potential non-metabolisable tracers using the same technique.In this proposal, we aim to bring the combination of native D-glucose and 3-oxy-methyl-D-glucose as a combined examination to the clinic to assess cancer glucose uptake and metabolism, thereby providing a cheap, widely available, more comprehensive, non-invasive alternative to nuclear medicine techniques currently used for cancer assessment within Europe.