[14C]deoxyglucose uptake and imaging in malignant melanoma

Since malignant tumors utilize more glucose than normal tissues, tumor uptake and autoradiographic imaging studies using the 14C-labeled glucose analog 2-deoxyglucose (DG) provide a useful preclinical system to determine if similar human tumors will image in vivo with positron emission tomography (PET) using 18F-labeled DG (FDG-PET). We studied B16 murine melanomas of increasing metastatic potential (F1, low; BL-6, intermediate; F10, high) as a feasibility study to determine the potential for human melanoma imaging using FDG-PET. Male C57BL-6 mice (50 g) were implanted sc with 1-mm3 fragments of B16 melanomas. Fourteen days later mice were injected ip with 1.25 muCi of [14C]DG. Sixty minutes later tumor (T) and gastrocnemius muscle (M) were harvested, solubilized, and counted for [14C]DG dpm/mg to estimate glucose utilization. Autoradiographic imaging was carried out similarly, using 2.0 muCi or [14C]DG with 30-day exposure of T and M tissue sections (20 microns thick) to X-ray film. The uptake of [14C]DG (expressed as dpm/mg; % injected dose/g; and tumor-to-muscle uptake ratios) was 6 to 10 times higher in tumors than in muscle tissue (P less than 0.001). All three melanoma cell lines imaged successfully with [14C]DG autoradiography. Tumor uptake of [14C]DG did not correlate with increasing metastatic potential. The experimental B16 murine melanomas F1, BL-6, and F10 extract glucose at higher rates than muscle tissue, a property necessary for successful PET imaging of cutaneous melanoma. The lack of correlation between glucose extraction and metastatic potential suggests that the demands for glucose during tumor growth and metastasis are not related. This is the first laboratory study to predict that human malignant melanoma will image with FDG-PET.