New PET Biomarker Could Detect Malignant Breast Tumors
by
Brendon Nafziger, DOTmed News Associate Editor | December 30, 2009
Reducing unneeded
biopsies would help
reduce costs and
patient stress
Long sought in breast imaging, a new biomarker for positron emission tomography (PET) scans could provide a "fingerprint" for cancer, possibly lessening doctors' reliance on costly and invasive needle biopsies.
According to recent studies conducted by researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, unlike earlier PET agents, a marker called NVB-64 appears to reliably illuminate potentially deadly growths in the breast.
NVB-64, also known as 64Cu-TP3805, works by recognizing specific genetic changes expressed by tumor cell receptors, VPAC1 receptors, which respond to the vasoactive intestinal peptide, a hormone that serves several different functions throughout the body.
Mathew Thakur, Ph.D., professor of radiology and director of the Laboratories of Radiopharmaceutical Research and Molecular Imaging at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, was principal researcher for the studies.
"The basic concept is quite novel," says Dr. Thakur. "Hypothetically it can detect all breast cancers. It can eliminate benign tumors [from consideration], and it can detect the cancer at an early stage."
Biopsy alternative?
Needle biopsy is the conventional way to determine tumor malignancy and the "gold standard" for identifying ambiguous masses detected by imaging. But it's expensive, and most women who undergo them do not have cancerous tumors.
"There are about 6 million biopsies performed every year and 80 percent of those find benign pathologies at $5,000 per biopsy," Dr. Thakur says. "That is close to $30 billion."
The new PET biomarker, developed by NuView Life Sciences in Park City, Utah, if proven reliable, would be a faster, cheaper alternative for some women.
NuView says, unlike a needle biopsy, PET imaging would provide same-day results, eliminating the anxiety patients experience waiting for tests to come back from the lab.
It would also cut costs significantly for patients and insurers. The price of the NVB64-PET scan is anticipated to be around $2,000. This translates to a 60% cost saving over a typical needle biopsy of the breast.
FDG lacks specificity
Another PET radioisotope called fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is already FDA approved and in wide use for imaging breast tumors. It works by looking for metabolic changes in glucose consumption that indicate cancer formation, but NuView argues it leaves many tumors undetected and can't determine malignancy with any degree of certainty.
"FDG misses almost 30 percent of malignancies," says Dr. Thakur. "Although there are a lot of strides that have been made, we cannot distinguish benign tumors from malignant tumors."