Medical Physics Seminar – Monday, April 21, 2014
Using 19F MRI to monitor cellular infusions to treat cancer
Christian Capitini, MD (guest of Dr. Bryan Bednarz)
Dept of Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI - USA
For patients who have cancer in multiple organs or whose cancer recurs after completing therapy, there are limited options. Natural killer (NK) cell infusions are one approach being explored in children with relapsed cancer at UW. According to the FDA Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapy Advisory Committee, there is an urgent need to track cells in vivo to determine trafficking patterns and longevity. Current clinical MRI coils detect differences in tissue water molecule content via hydrogen (1H), making clusters of cells (which also contain water) impossible to view; however we have the expertise to design novel MRI coils to detect other atoms besides 1H. Fluorine-19 (19F) is a nonradioactive isotope of fluorine which can be incubated with cells using a perfluorocarbon emulsion, and then imaged using MRI coils tuned to detect fluorine atoms. In this lecture, we will discuss labeling NK cells with 19F to make these cells detectable by MRI, allowing real time analysis of cell trafficking and persistence.