Evaluating the Performance of Pathogen-Targeted Positron Emission Tomography Radiotracers in a Rat Model of Vertebral Discitis-Osteomyelitis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Vertebral discitis-osteomyelitis (VDO) is a devastating infection of the spine that is challenging to distinguish from noninfectious mimics using computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. We and others have developed novel metabolism-targeted positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracers for detecting living Staphylococcus aureus and other bacteria in vivo, but their head-to-head performance in a well-validated VDO animal model has not been reported.

Methods

We compared the performance of several PET radiotracers in a rat model of VDO. [11C]PABA and [18F]FDS were assessed for their ability to distinguish S aureus, the most common non-tuberculous pathogen VDO, from Escherichia coli.

Results

In the rat S aureus VDO model, [11C]PABA could detect as

SUBMITTER: Parker MFL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11009497 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature