Dual-Isotope Imaging

Advanced imaging with multiple radiotracers!

We are now developing advanced imaging techniques involving simultaneous injection of two or more imaging agents which are labelled with different radioisotopes.

As medical radioisotopes have unique ‘fingerprint’ emissions, it is possible to determine the relative concentrations of each radiolabelled imaging agent at specific locations in the body – for example, within a tumour. This opens up the possibility of performing ratiometric or ‘cocktail’ imaging to investigate multiple imaging biomarkers simultaneously.

We have developed a new dual-isotope technique which allows us to accurately quantify how much uptake of a cancer-targeting antibody is actually caused by non-specific factors such as leaky blood vessels and necrosis. This is really important as its sheds light on a phenomenon which is completely undetectable with current clinical imaging methods and it could help to prevent incorrect cancer diagnosis and treatment decisions. We are now taking this further and exploring other useful applications of dual-isotope imaging.

Here is a recent example of our work in this area: James C. Knight, Michael J. Mosley, Veerle Kersemans, Gemma M. Dias, P. Danny Allen, Sean Smart, and Bart Cornelissen. Dual-Isotope Imaging Allows In Vivo Immunohistochemistry Using Radiolabelled Antibodies in Tumours. Nucl. Med. Biol. 2019, in press

Dual-isotope imaging allows us to track two different radiolabeled antibodies simultaneously, revealing important hidden insights about tumours!