Diagnosing fungal infections with a new PET imaging tracer

2024

Challenge

Global rates of invasive fungal infections have increased over the past few decades, mainly in individuals with compromised immune systems, leading to severe health problems and many deaths. One major barrier to effectively treating such infections is delayed diagnosis. The standard diagnostic methods require invasive procedures such as bronchoalveolar lavage and biopsies, while noninvasive tests can suffer from limited accuracy in certain situations.

Advance

IRP researchers developed and tested a fungus-specific chemical for use in positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, known as a PET tracer. The tracer allows non-invasive PET imaging to accurately identify the presence and location of cells that process a sugar called cellobiose, which is used by fungi but not mammalian cells or bacteria. A study in mice found that the tracer was able to distinguish mice with a live fungal infection from those with a bacterial infection, inflammation unrelated to an infection, or whose bodies contained dead fungal cells. Moreover, the tracer was promptly expelled from the body.

Impact

With further development, the PET tracer created by the IRP researchers could be the first ever used in clinical settings for noninvasive, rapid, and accurate diagnosis of deep-seated fungal infections. Importantly, the tracer can be easily made from commercially available ingredients without the need for sophisticated, expensive technologies. By providing a very sensitive and specific way to diagnose fungal infections early on in the infection process, the tracer would allow prompt treatment and improve the survival and quality of life of infected patients.

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