Detection of Bladder Tumours using 18F-fluorothymidine PET-CT

Aims: Functional imaging techniques may facilitate personalised medicine. 18F-FDG PET-CT is not routinely used to study primary bladder tumours because urinary excretion of FDG impairs tumour detection. Catheterisation, retrograde filling of the bladder and forced diuresis can improve visualisation [1–3]. 18F-fluorothymidine (FLT) is a novel PET tracer being investigated as a proliferation imaging biomarker. There are no reports of imaging bladder tumours with FLT, therefore this prospective feasibility study had the following objectives: (1)To develop a minimally invasive and well-tolerated scanning procedure to image primary bladder tumours using a renally excreted PET tracer, FLT. (2)To investigate the utility of FLT in detecting primary muscle-invasive bladder cancer and assessing regional and metastatic spread.