Non-Invasive Imaging of [18F]HX4 With Positron-Emission-Tomography (PET)

Non invasive imaging of hypoxia with the aid of PET-scans could help to select the patients having a hypoxic tumour who could be treated with specific anti-hypoxic treatments such as bio-reductive drugs or hypoxic radio-sensitizers. Several 2-nitroimidazoles to which the compound to be tested, HX-4, belongs, labelled with Fluor-18 have already been used in patients. However, bad image quality and unpredictable kinetics limit their use. In extensive pre-clinical models, the combination of HX-4 labelled with Fluor-18 is a promising non-toxic new probe to determine hypoxia.