4FMFES-PET Imaging of Endometrial and Ovarian Cancers
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2022-08-31
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
This project is about exploring a novel method to detect ovarian and uterine cancers earlier
and better. More precisely, a high-performance radioactive estrogen analog will be used to
visualize hormone-sensitive uterine and ovarian tumors using PET imaging. Not only this
imaging methodology could improve the whole-body assessment of those diseases, but will also
hint clinicians about the optimal course of therapy to undertake.
The lead investigator's team designed in the past years an innovative radioactive estrogen
derivative tracer (4FMFES) for the medical imaging modality termed Positron Emission
Tomography (PET). The compound was first shown to be safe for human use. Recently, a clinical
trial demonstrated that 4FMFES-PET is superior to any existing comparable tracer for
detection of hormone-sensitive breast cancer patients. 4FMFES is particularly useful to
pinpoint unsuspected metastases early, which allowed better breast cancer patient management
and staging. 4FMFES and standard FDG PET imaging were shown to be complementary in breast
cancer, the use of both techniques together providing a detection rate nearing 100%. Since
ovarian and uterine cancers are about as likely to be targeted by 4FMFES as breast cancer,
the use of this novel precision imaging method will be adapted to those other indications.
In general, the sooner a cancer is diagnosed and treated, the better the outcome of a patient
will be. Gynecological cancers lack precise screening and detection tools. In particular,
while a majority of uterine cancers are relatively well managed, patients burdened with
metastatic burden have a much worse prognosis, and precise and early detection of those
lesions will greatly help clinicians to better treat those complicated cases. As for ovarian
cancers, they are usually devoid of clinical symptoms until late onset, which partly explain
the high mortality rate of this disease. Hence, for both diseases, a precision, whole-body
imaging technique will allow earlier assessment, followed by earlier intervention, resulting
in improved survival rate and better quality of life for patients.
Phase:
Phase 1/Phase 2
Details
Lead Sponsor:
Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke