Portable PET probes are a novel tool for intraoperative localization of tumor deposits

Positron emission tomography (PET) identifies cancer deposits by detecting sites of gamma emissions that are released from radioactively labeled molecules targeting tumor to formulate a PET image. Correlating preoperative PET scans with intraoperative findings remains a challenge. We investigated whether high-energy gamma emissions detected by a novel hand-held PET probe would detect tumors and offer a real-time method to localize tumor intraoperatively. Furthermore, we investigated the novel beta probe, which detects emissions at a shorter range than gamma emissions, making them undetectable by PET scanners, but potentially valuable for close range intraoperative detection of tumor deposits.

Six-to-eight-week-old athymic mice were injected with one of four possible tumor cell lines: gastric, pancreas, squamous cell and breast cancer. After tumors reached at least 1 cm in size, they were euthanized and imaged with a micro-PET imager. Hand-held gamma and beta probes were then used in vivo and ex vivo to measure high-energy gamma and beta emissions.

The portable PET probes detected high-energy gamma and beta emissions from all tumors evaluated. These emissions were reproducible and we established that beta emissions correlate with high-energy gamma emissions and conventional PET scans. There was a strong positive correlation (R = 0.8) between gamma and beta counts. Beta emission showed a stronger correlation than gamma emission with overall tissue radioactivity.

This study is the first to demonstrate that gamma emission detected by conventional PET imaging correlates with beta emissions. This study shows that compared to detection of gamma emissions, beta counts may offer superior real-time localization of tumor deposits. Intraoperative portable PET probe may become a useful way to exploit tumor biology and PET technology to guide real-time tissue characterization during surgery.