Cancer diagnosis: glucose + MRI
How to See Cancer with Sugar
Kirill Stasevich, Compulenta
Glucose will tell us about the activity of different areas of a cancerous tumor: the more intensively cancer cells divide, the more sugar they absorb, and the difference between increased and decreased glucose concentrations in tissues can be detected using a conventional MRI scanner.
When diagnosing cancer and subsequent treatment, it is important, firstly, to detect the tumor in time, and secondly, to constantly monitor how therapy affects it. The methods that allow this to be done are sometimes quite complex and not too safe: diagnostic tests are often based on the use of radioactive tags that indicate the location of the tumor.
Researchers from University College London (UK) have proposed a much simpler and safer method of cancer diagnosis. It is based on the simple consideration that the tumor, due to its active growth, consumes much more energy than healthy tissue. And one of the most used sources of energy for cells is glucose.
It turns out that the growth of the tumor can be monitored by the consumption of sugar: if a piece of tissue or organ "eats" too much glucose, then there is intensive cell division.
But how to estimate the distribution of glucose in tissues and organs? Usually in such cases, the substance is labeled with something – something that would give a signal, and such a label is often very unsafe (for example, due to radioactivity). But this time, scientists used the glucoCEST method, when glucose is supplied with a magnetic "label" using radio waves: glucose processed by radio waves becomes visible to a conventional MRI scanner. Magnetic resonance imaging is known to detect proton deflections in response to electromagnetic "irritation" in a strong magnetic field. The glucose molecule also has protons, and in an MRI scanner, these protons, connected to oxygen atoms in a sugar molecule, can be seen.
With the help of ordinary sugar, as the authors write in Nature Medicine (Walker-Samuel et al., In vivo imaging of glucose uptake and metabolism in tumors), they managed to describe the intestinal tumor in mice fairly accurately. The method allows not only to say whether there is a tumor or not, but also to determine its boundaries and the most active areas, where energy consumption is especially high, and there is a lot of glucose.
A "portrait" of a cancerous tumor made with glucose.
Red and yellow indicate the most active areas of the tumor,
consuming maximum sugar (photos of the authors of the work).The resulting "portrait" of cancer is more detailed than if it were done by conventional methods using a radioactive label.
And knowing how the activity of the tumor changes in its different areas, you can choose a more effective treatment.
Researchers have no doubt that this technology will soon be adopted even by ordinary medical institutions – after all, MRI scanning, on which it is based, has not been a curiosity for a long time (at least abroad).
The authors of the work emphasize that with the help of glucose and an MRI scanner, you can check the condition of a cancerous tumor as often as you like, without fear of harming the patient, even if it is a pregnant woman or a small child.
Prepared based on the materials of Medical Xpress: Sugar makes cancer light-up in MRI scanners.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru09.07.2013