PET Imaging of Melanoma Using a Melanin-Targeted Probe

Melanin exists in most melanoma lesions. Melanin plays an important role in melanoma progression, metastasis, therapy response, and the overall survival of patients. Therefore, melanin is a critical target for melanoma diagnosis and therapy. Many melanin-targeting probes, such as radioisotope-labeled benzamide analogs, have been developed for melanoma diagnosis using positron emission tomography (PET). The N-(2-(diethylamino)-ethyl)-¹⁸F-5-fluoropicolinamide (¹⁸F-P3BZA) probe is one of the benzamide analogs and has been preliminarily tested for clinical diagnosis of melanoma in our recent studies. It has shown high specificity and favorable in vivo performance for PET imaging of melanoma. Herein, we describe the detailed synthesis protocol of ¹⁸F-P3BZA and the PET/CT imaging procedure for animal models and patients.