Metabolic imaging with deuterium labeled substrates

Deuterium metabolic imaging (DMI) is an emerging clinically-applicable technique for the non-invasive investigation of tissue metabolism. The generally short T₁ values of ²H-labeled metabolites in vivo can compensate for the relatively low sensitivity of detection by allowing rapid signal acquisition in the absence of significant signal saturation. Studies with deuterated substrates, including [6,6'-²H₂]glucose, [²H₃]acetate, [²H₉]choline and [2,3-²H₂]fumarate have demonstrated the considerable potential of DMI for imaging tissue metabolism and cell death in vivo. The technique is evaluated here in comparison with established metabolic imaging techniques, including PET measurements of 2-deoxy-2-[¹⁸F]fluoro-d-glucose (FDG) uptake and ¹³C MR imaging of the metabolism of hyperpolarized ¹³C-labeled substrates.