Impact of blood-brain barrier permeabilization induced by ultrasound associated to microbubbles on the brain delivery and kinetics of cetuximab: An immunoPET study using 89 Zr-cetuximab

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), involved in cell proliferation and migration, is overexpressed in ~50% of glioblastomas. Anti-EGFR based strategies using monoclonal antibodies (mAb) such as cetuximab (CTX) have been proposed for central nervous system (CNS) cancer therapy. However, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) drastically restricts their brain penetration which limits their efficacy for the treatment of glioblastomas. Herein, a longitudinal PET imaging study was performed to assess the relevance and the impact of focused ultrasound (FUS)-mediated BBB permeabilization on the brain exposure to the anti-EGFR mAb CTX over time. For this purpose, FUS permeabilization process with microbubbles was applied on intact BBB mouse brain before the injection of Zr-labeled CTX for longitudinal imaging monitoring. FUS induced a dramatic increase in mAb penetration to the brain, 2 times higher compared to the intact BBB. The transfer of Zr-CTX from blood to the brain was rendered significant by FUS (k = 1.3 ± 0.23 min with FUS versus k = 0 ± 0.006 min without FUS). FUS allowed significant and prolonged exposure to mAb in the brain parenchyma. This study confirms the potential of FUS as a target delivery method for mAb in CNS.