High Accumulation of 2-Deoxy-2-Fluorine-18-Fluoro-D-Galactose by Well-Differentiated Hepatomas of Mice and Rats

The potential application of 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-galactose for the detection and evaluation of hepatomas with PET was examined in mouse and rat liver tumor models. Biodistribution studies showed that uptake of this marker was high in well-differentiated, spontaneous hepatoma of C3H mice at almost 92% of the normal liver level. The uptake by well-differentiated Morris rat hepatoma (5123D) was relatively high and second to that of the C3H hepatoma. On the other hand, uptake values for poorly differentiated mouse hepatoma (MH129P), rat hepatomas (AH109A, AH272), mouse melanoma (B-16) and mammary carcinoma (FM3A) were very low and only 14%-18% of that in the normal liver. The results suggest that while well-differentiated hepatomas maintain a high galactose metabolic activity, poorly differentiated hepatomas or other tumors lose this to a large extent. Consequently, this radiopharmaceutical can be used with PET for biochemical characterization of hepatomas and the differential diagnosis between hepatomas and other cancers.