Applications of PET imaging with radiolabelled choline (11C/18F-choline)

The use of radiopharmaceuticals is the distinguishing characteristics of nuclear medicine. Among the panel of available radiopharmaceuticals in many PET centers around the world, choline is well represented, being widely used to image prostate cancer. Carbon-11 labelled choline can only be produced in centres with a cyclotron available, but the 18F-labelled radiopharmaceutical is distributed and licensed in several countries in Europe. Besides prostate cancer, other possible uses of choline are related to its ability to indirectly evaluate the cell proliferation as a measure of the synthesis of lipids required for cell membrane. In particular, the radiopharmaceutical can be successfully used in those districts where 18F-FDG has a high uptake, like the brain. Moreover, slow growing tumors, not always taking up 18F-FDG, like hepatocellular carcinoma, can also be imaged. We will evaluate possibly uses of this molecule in patients affected by prostate cancer, brain tumors and hepatocellular carcinoma.