Dynamic PET-MRI for integrated quantification of molecular immune responses and their vascular consequences

Principal investigators: Philipp Backhaus, Florian Büther
Project number: CRC 1450 B06
Project term: 01/2021–12/2028

The aim of the project is to elaborate synergistic links between PET and MRI in a hybrid PET-MRI system by dual dynamic recordings of arterial input functions and pharmacokinetic modelling (1). A framework to deduce the PET arterial input function from MRI will be established by performing simultaneous recordings in animals, and finally tested in patient scans (2, 3).

Building on this, approaches will be evaluated to integrate MRI-derived information on perfusion and permeability into PET modelling in mouse models of ischemia driven inflammation in the heart and kidney (4) to uncover and better understand unspecific radiotracer uptake phenomena (5, 6).

Novel DCE-MRI setup (A) for extracorporeal measurements of PET/MRI arterial input function (AIF) in mice, including two reservoirs for determination of DCE-MRI AIFs and a radiation detector for radiotracer AIFs. Corresponding maximum-intensity-projections (MIPs) of an exemplary DCE-MRI scan at different timepoints after injection [s] (B). This method allows us to quantitatively detect changes in the perfusion of glioblastoma in mice using DCE-MRI images (C) and thus improving clinical decision making in terms of diagnosis and treatment. The accuracy of our method is finally cross-validated with autoradiography (left) and LA-ICP-MS (right) in cooperation with project B02 (D).
© Florian Gierse M.D. candidate / research group Michael Schäfers; project head Florian Büther and Philipp Backhaus; LA-ICP-MS analysis provided by Katharina Kronenberg / research group Uwe Karst

Team

Principal investigators

Backhaus, Philipp, Prof. Dr. med.
Department of Nuclear Medicine, UKM & European Institute for Molecular Imaging
Büther, Florian, Priv.-Doz. Dr. rer. medic.
Department of Nuclear Medicine, UKM & European Institute for Molecular Imaging

Project members

Brederecke, Tim
European Institute for Molecular Imaging

Schiefelbein, Lars
European Institute for Molecular Imaging

Publications

The names of the principal investigators in our network have been bolded. Publications released prior to 2021, when funding for our network commenced, represent previous project-related work.