First Total-Body Kinetic Modeling and Parametric Imaging of Dynamic 68Ga-FAPI-04 PET in Pancreatic and Gastric Cancer

Fibroblast activation protein inhibitor (FAPI) is an ideal diagnostic and therapeutic target in malignant tumors. However, the knowledge of kinetic modeling and parametric imaging of 68Ga-FAPI is limited. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the pharma-cokinetics of 68Ga-FAPI-04 PET/CT in pancreatic cancer and gastric cancer and to conduct parametric imaging of dynamic total-body data compared with SUV imaging. Methods: Dynamic total-body 68Ga-FAPI-04 PET/CT was performed on 13 patients. The lesion time-activity curves were fitted by 3-compartment models and multigraphical mod-els. The kinetics parameters derived from the 2-tissue reversible com-partment model (2T4K) and multigraphical models were analyzed. Parametric VT imaging was generated using the 2T4K and Logan mod-els, and their performances were evaluated compared with SUV images. Results: 2T4K had the lowest Akaike information criterion value, and its fitting curves matched excellently with the origin time-activity curves. Visual assessment revealed that the VT(2T4K) images and VT(Logan with spatial constraint [SC]) images both showed less image noise and higher lesion conspicuity compared with SUV images. Objective image quality assessment demonstrated that parametric VT(2T4K) images and parametric VT(Logan with SC) images had a 5.0-fold and 5.0-fold higher average signal-to-noise ratio and 3.6-fold and 4.1-fold higher average contrast-to-noise ratio compared with conventional SUV images, respectively. In addition, no significant differences in signal-to-noise ratio and contrast-to-noise of pathologic lesions were observed between parametric VT(2T4K) images and parametric VT(Logan with SC) images (all P . 0.05). Conclusions: The 2T4K model was the preferred compartment model. Total-body parametric imaging of 68Ga-FAPI-04 PET yielded superior quantification beyond SUV with enhanced lesion contrast, which may serve as a promising imaging method to make an early diagnosis, to better reflect tumor characterization, or to allow evaluation of treatment response. VT(2T4K) images are comparable in image quality and consistent to VT(Logan with SC) images in lesions conspicuity; however, VT(Logan with SC) images presented an appealing alternative to VT(2T4K) images because of their simplicity.

Automated summary

The study aimed to explore the pharmacokinetics of 68Ga-FAPI-04 PET/CT in pancreatic cancer and gastric cancer, and compare the parametric imaging of dynamic total-body data with SUV imaging. The results showed that parametric imaging using the 2T4K model improved tumor conspicuity and image quality, which may be helpful for early diagnosis, better characterization of tumors, or evaluation of treatment response.