PET of human prostate cancer xenografts in mice with increased uptake of 64CuCl2.

Unlabelled: Our objective was to determine whether human prostate cancer xenografts in mice can be localized by PET using 64CuCl2 as a probe (64Cu PET).
Methods: Athymic mice bearing human prostate cancer xenografts were subjected to 64Cu PET, followed by quantitative analysis of the tracer concentrations and immunohistochemistry study of human copper transporter 1 expression in the tumor tissues.
Results: Human prostate cancer xenografts expressing high levels of human copper transporter 1 were well visualized on the PET images obtained 24 h after injection but not on the images obtained 1 h after injection. PET quantitative analysis demonstrated a high concentration of 64CuCl2 in the tumors in comparison to that in the left shoulder regions (percentage injected dose per gram of tissue: 3.6 +/- 1.3 and 0.6 +/- 0.3, respectively; P = 0.004), at 24 h after injection.
Conclusion: The data from this study suggested that locally recurrent prostate cancer might be localized with 64Cu PET using 64CuCl2 as a probe.