Imaging liver metastases of colorectal cancer patients with radiolabelled bevacizumab: Lack of correlation with VEGF-A expression

Aim of the study: To investigate the correlation between tumour accumulation of In-111-bevacizumab and VEGF-A expression in patients with colorectal liver metastases. Methods: Two weeks before resection of the liver metastases 12 patients were intravenously injected with In-111-labelled bevacizumab. Ten minutes and 7 d after injection a whole body scan was acquired. Seven days after the injection, 3D acquisition SPECT of the liver was performed. Results: Enhanced uptake of In-111-bevacizumab in the liver metastases was observed in 9 of the 12 patients. The level of antibody accumulation in these lesions varied considerably. There was no correlation between the level of In-111-antibody accumulation and the level of VEGF-A expression in the tissue as determined by in situ hybridisation and ELISA. Conclusions: In this study, we investigated the correlation between tumour accumulation of radiolabelled bevacizumab and VEGF-A expression in patients with colorectal liver metastases. No clear-cut correlation between the level of antibody accumulation and expression of VEGF-A was found. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.