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Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic fibrosing interstitial lung disease with a poor prognosis. 68Ga-labeled FAP ligands exhibited highly promising results due to the crucial role of activated fibroblasts in fibrosis imaging of the lung. However, 18F-labeled FAP ligands might provide qualitatively much higher imaging results with accompanying economic benefits due to large-scale production. Thus, we sought to investigate the potential of [18F]FAPI-74 prospectively in a small patient cohort. Methods: Eight patients underwent both [18F]FAPI-74-PET/CT and HRCT scans and were then compared with a control group without any fibrosing pulmonary disease. The tracer uptake of fibrotic lung areas was analyzed in synopsis with radiological and clinical parameters. Results: We observed a positive correlation between the fibrotic active volume, the Hounsfield scale, as well as the vital and diffusing capacity of the lung. Conclusion: The initial results confirm our assumption that [18F]FAPI-74 offers a viable non-invasive assessment method for pulmonary fibrotic changes in patients with IPF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Prostate cancer is the most prevalent cancer among men. Patients diagnosed with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) face a highly aggressive disease and reduced overall survival. For these patients, [177Lu]Lu-PSMA-617 has shown promising results. However, this therapy may not benefit patients with low or heterogeneous PSMA expression. The gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPr) is highly expressed in prostate cancer and other cancer cells, and [177Lu]Lu-labeled GRPr-ligands have demonstrated good tumor uptake and retention, with minimal uptake in healthy tissues. However, the level of GRPr expression in advanced mCRPC patients remains elusive. In this study, we compared [68Ga]Ga-RM2 with [68Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 in a Latin American mCRPC cohort to evaluate the clinical utility of [68Ga]Ga-RM2 in this group of patients. Although GRPr is overexpressed in the early stages of prostate cancer, our results indicate that in more advanced stages, such as mCRPC, the expression is lower than PSMA. Background: The gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPr) is highly overexpressed in several solid tumors, including treatment-naïve and recurrent prostate cancer. [68Ga]Ga-RM2 is a well-established radiotracer for PET imaging of GRPr, and [177Lu]Lu-RM2 has been proposed as a therapeutic alternative for patients with heterogeneous and/or low expression of PSMA. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the expression of GRPr and PSMA in a group of patients diagnosed with castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) by means of PET imaging. Methods: Seventeen mCRPC patients referred for radio-ligand therapy (RLT) were enrolled and underwent [68Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 and [68Ga]Ga-RM2 PET/CT imaging, 8.8 ± 8.6 days apart, to compare the biodistribution of each tracer. Uptake in healthy organs and tumor lesions was assessed by SUV values, and tumor-to-background ratios were analyzed. Results: [68Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 showed significantly higher uptake in tumor lesions in bone, lymph nodes, prostate, and soft tissues and detected 23% more lesions compared to [68Ga]Ga-RM2. In 4/17 patients (23.5%), the biodistribution of both tracers was comparable. Conclusions: Our results show that in our cohort of mCRPC patients, PSMA expression was higher compared to GRPr. Nevertheless, RLT with [177Lu]Lu-RM2 may be an alternative treatment option for selected patients or patients in earlier disease stages, such as biochemical recurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Simple Summary: In the present work we investigated the clinical utility of Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide (Al[18F]F-OC) in comparison to [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE in patients diagnosed with neuroendocrine tumours. Our aim was to verify the recently published, promising results for Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide in the Latin-American population. Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide provided excellent image quality, detected NET lesions with high sensitivity and represents a highly promising, clinical alternative to [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE. PET imaging of neuroendocrine tumours (NET) is well established for staging and therapy follow-up. The short half-life, increasing costs, and regulatory issues significantly limit the availability of approved imaging agents, such as [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE. Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide provides a similar biodistribution and tumour uptake, can be produced on a large scale and may improve access to precision imaging. Here we prospectively compared the clinical utility of [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE and Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide in the Latin-American population. Our results showed that in patients with stage IV NETs [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE presents higher physiological uptake than Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide in the liver, hypophysis, salivary glands, adrenal glands (all p < 0.001), pancreatic uncinated process, kidneys, and small intestine (all p < 0.05). Nevertheless, despite the lower background uptake of Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide, comparative analysis of tumour-to-liver (TLR) and tumour-to-spleen (TSR) showed no statistically significant difference for lesions in the liver, bone, lymph nodes, and other tissues. Only three discordant lesions in highly-metastases livers were detected by [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE but not by Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide and only one discordant lesion was detected by Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide but not by [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE. Non-inferiority analysis showed that Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide is comparable to [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE. Hence, our results demonstrate that Al[18F]F-NOTA-Octreotide provided excellent image quality, visualized NET lesions with high sensitivity and represents a highly promising, clinical alternative to [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue including the General Education Act in Colombia, educational quality and standards and international curriculum and development.

Background: The gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPr) is highly overexpressed in several solid tumors, including treatment-naïve and recurrent prostate cancer. [ 68 Ga]Ga-RM2 is a well-established radiotracer for PET imaging of GRPr, and [ 177 Lu]Lu-RM2 has been proposed as a therapeutic alternative for patients with heterogeneous and/or low expression of PSMA. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the expression of GRPr and PSMA in a group of patients diagnosed with castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) by means of PET imaging., Methods: Seventeen mCRPC patients referred for radio-ligand therapy (RLT) were enrolled and underwent [ 68 Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 and [ 68 Ga]Ga-RM2 PET/CT imaging, 8.8 ± 8.6 days apart, to compare the biodistribution of each tracer. Uptake in healthy organs and tumor lesions was assessed by SUV values, and tumor-to-background ratios were analyzed., Results: [ 68 Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 showed significantly higher uptake in tumor lesions in bone, lymph nodes, prostate, and soft tissues and detected 23% more lesions compared to [ 68 Ga]Ga-RM2. In 4/17 patients (23.5%), the biodistribution of both tracers was comparable., Conclusions: Our results show that in our cohort of mCRPC patients, PSMA expression was higher compared to GRPr. Nevertheless, RLT with [ 177 Lu]Lu-RM2 may be an alternative treatment option for selected patients or patients in earlier disease stages, such as biochemical recurrence.

Palliative treatment of bone metastasis using radiolabeled bisphosphonates is a well-known concept proven to be safe and effective. A new therapeutic radiopharmaceutical for bone metastasis is 177 Lu-DOTA-zoledronic acid ( 177 Lu-DOTA-ZOL). In this study, the safety and dosimetry of a single therapeutic dose of 177 Lu-DOTA-ZOL were evaluated on the basis of a series of SPECT/CT images and blood samples. Methods: Nine patients with exclusive bone metastases from metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) (70.8 ± 8.4 y) and progression under conventional therapies participated in this prospective study. After receiving 5,780 ± 329 MBq 177 Lu-DOTA-ZOL, patients underwent 3-dimensional whole-body SPECT/CT imaging and venous blood sampling over 7 d. Dosimetric evaluation was performed for main organs and tumor lesions. Safety was assessed by blood biomarkers. Results: 177 Lu-DOTA-ZOL showed fast uptake and high retention in bone lesions and fast clearance from the bloodstream in all patients. The average retention in tumor lesions was 0.02% injected activity per gram at 6 h after injection and approximately 0.01% at 170 h after injection. In this cohort, the average absorbed doses in bone tumor lesions, kidneys, red bone marrow, and bone surfaces were 4.21, 0.17, 0.36, and 1.19 Gy/GBq, respectively. The red marrow was found to be the dose-limiting organ for all patients. A median maximum tolerated injected activity of 6.0 GBq may exceed the defined threshold of 2 Gy for the red bone marrow in individual patients (4/8). Conclusion: 177 Lu-DOTA-ZOL is safe and has a favorable therapeutic index compared with other radiopharmaceuticals used in the treatment of osteoblastic bone metastases. Personalized dosimetry, however, should be considered to avoid severe hematotoxicity for individual patients., (© 2021 by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.)

Background: Dipyridamole (DIP) is the most commonly employed pharmacological stressor for myocardial perfusion tomography (SPECT) in patients unable to reach an adequate work load., Aim: To assess the predictive capacity of DIP SPECT on survival., Material and Methods: We included 985 adults aged 66 ±11 years (45% women) with rest and DIP-SPECT. The main indications for the procedure were coronary artery disease (CAD) screening in 66% and known CAD in 33%. Participants were followed up for a median of 65 months (interquartile range 54 to 86 months). During the follow up, 261 deaths were recorded and 98% had a specified cause in their death certificate., Results: Myocardial SPECT was abnormal in 44% of participants. Transient ischemic defects were observed in 34%, fixed defects concordant with infarction in 27% and post-stress systolic dysfunction in 23%. Twenty five percent of deaths were attributable to cardiac or ischemic cause and 22% to cancer. In a bivariate analysis, the hazard ratio (HR) of death of any cause was lower in females and higher in the presence of CAD. The multivariate analysis showed that being older than 46 years increased the HR of death of any cause. In a bivariate analysis, the HR for cardiac death was higher when the myocardial SPECT showed ischemia, necrosis or left ventricular dilation. In the multivariate analysis, post-stress left ventricular systolic function was associated with a lower risk of cardiac death., Conclusions: An abnormal myocardial SPECT, perfusion abnormalities, left ventricular systolic function or dilation are independent predictors of cardiac death in these participants.

Background: The evaluation of coronary artery disease (CAD) can be performed with stress test and myocardial SPECT tomography., Aim: To assess the predictive value of myocardial SPECT using stress test for cardiovascular events in patients with good exercise capacity., Material and Methods: We included 102 males aged 56 ± 10 years and 19 females aged 52 ± 10 years, all able to achieve 10 METs and ≥ 85% of the theoretical maximum heart rate and at least 8 min in their stress test with gated 99mTc-sestamibi SPECT. Eighty two percent of patients were followed clinically for 33 ± 17 months., Results: Sixty seven percent of patients were studied for CAD screening and the rest for known disease assessment. Treadmill stress test was negative in 75.4%; 37% of patients with moderate to severe Duke Score presented ischemia. Normal myocardial perfusion SPECT was observed in 70.2%. Reversible defects appeared in 24.8% of cases, which were of moderate or severe degree (> 10% left ventricular extension) in 56.6%. Only seven cases had coronary events after the SPECT. Two major (myocardial infarction and emergency coronary revascularization) and 5 minor events (elective revascularization) ere observed in the follow-up. In a multivariate analysis, SPECT ischemia was the only statistically significant parameter that increased the probability of having a major or minor event., Conclusions: Nearly a quarter of our patients with good exercise capacity demonstrated reversible defects in their myocardial perfusion SPECT. In the intermediate-term follow-up, a low rate of cardiac events was observed, being the isotopic ischemia the only significant predictive parameter.

Background: Chronic cocaine users develop multiple potentially lethal ischemic vascular complications associated with accelerated atherosclerosis., Aim: To assess biochemical and lipid profiles among cocaine dependent subjects in recent abstinence., Material and Methods: A blood sample to measure blood count, biochemical and lipid profiles was obtained from 78 patients aged 19 to 53 years (78% males) who complied with DSM-IV criteria for cocaine dependency. Laboratory results were compared with a group of normal subjects., Results: All cases had positive urinary cocaine, with a mean consumption lapse of 7.6 years. The frequency of smoking was higher in cases. Dependent males had higher body mass index than controls. Compared to controls, dependent females had significantly higher triglyceride (TG) levels and lower HDL cholesterol. Therefore the relation total/HDL cholesterol was higher (p = 0.0365). Dependent males had higher TG levels than their normal counterparts. Dependent subjects consuming cocaine base-paste had higher TG levels. Total proteins, albumin, urea and blood urea nitrogen were lower in dependent subjects. Among males, serum creatinine was lower and blood urea was positively correlated with the daily amount of cocaine use (p = 0.03). After a month of strict abstinence, lipid profile was repeated in 27 patients and remained unchanged., Conclusions: Chronic cocaine use was associated with higher TG in both genders and lower HDL cholesterol in women when compared with a group of healthy counterparts.

Introduction: in the last few years, the Incidence rate of fascioliosis caused by Fasciola hepatica has increased worldwide. Cuba is one of the countries that have reported sporadic cases and also some outbreaks of fasciolosis., Objective: to describe clinical and therapeutic features of this trematodiasis of digestive transmission found in 87 patients, who had been admitted to "Pedro Kourí" Institute of Tropical Medicine from January 1996 to December 2005., Methods: patients were divided into 2 groups according to the prescribed drug, that is, triclabendazole and dihydroemetine. The clinical variables were collected at the time of diagnosis and 90 days after treatment; the means and the standard deviation were estimated., Results: males was slightly predominant (54) in our series of patients admitted to the institute service. Consumption of watercress (Nasturtium officinale) was found in almost half of the patients. Abdominal pain, fever and malaise were the most frequent symptoms. Both drugs were useful to treat F. hepatica., Conclusions: this study showed the usefulness of lab tests for diagnosis and follow-up of patients after treatment. The anti-parasitic drugs dihydroemetine and triclabendazole proved to be effective at the prescribed doses in this research with minor adverse effects.

Antecedents: Most of the literature has focused on the morphological and histochemical characteristics of palatine glands during the development histogenesis and maturation process. However, there are no publications regarding protein glycosylation and the distribution of glycoproteins with N and O-glycoside bonds, and their possible functional role., Objective: Based on this background we committed ourselves to studying the human palatine glands in different age groups in order to determine the beginning of mucine secretion and the presence of glycoproteins with N and O-glycoside bonds during the processes of differentiation and maturation., Materials and Method: Human palatine glands were obtained from embryos, fetuses, newborn infants, youngsters and adults. They were studied using histochemical methods (PAS, Dane, Alcian blue, Toluidine blue), and lectin histochemistry., Results: The variations observed in glycoconjugates during the development and maturation of human palatine glands show that secretion starts at early stages of prenatal development; it is made up of various sugars that might play an important role in the pre-natal and postnatal periods., Conclusions: The study of modifications in sugar residues in the human palatine glands during embryogenesis, differentiation and maturation processes allows us to have further knowledge of their histophysiology and possible changes taking place during aging. This study may also help to understand pathological processes in mature salivary glands.

The case of a 52-year-old white female patient with personal and family history of psychiatric disorders and pubic pediculosis that was referred for presenting exulcerated lesions of the skin during the last two years was reported. On the microscopic study, the samples taken from the patient during her admission corresponded to epithelium and hair. The skin biopsy was interpreted as exulceration secondary to scratching, and no evidence of parasites was found. Psychological and psychiatric evaluation of the patient confirmed her hallucinatory state. She was finally diagnosed a Delusional Parasitosis (II grade Primary Dermatozoal Parasitic Delirium, ectoparasitosis). This is a very infrequent diagnosis and no documented case was found of this dermatological pathology in Cuba.

The teaching of Oral Histology and Embryology clinically integrated was designed as a pilot experience to be developed during the 2005 academic year at the Division of Histology and Embryology (Chair "A") of the National University of Cordoba School of Dentistry. This experience, in which the members of the faculty of the Department of Clinical and Basic Sciences have an active participation, is based on a systemic conception of the learning-teaching process and on the recommendations made by the OPS/OMS. This approach will allow us to optimize the quality of our undergraduate programs through better teacher training and the gradual integration of basic and clinical sciences. Our aim is to provide a better education with clinical relevance in basic sciences and scientific basis in clinical assistance.