Lantheus Medical Imaging reported encouraging results from a phase II study of LMI 1195, an F-18 tracer for use in cardiac PET to evaluate myocardial presynaptic sympathetic nerve function. The findings were presented on Monday at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) annual meeting in Orlando, FL.
The results indicate that PET with LMI 1195 is comparable to carbon-11 (C-11) hydroxyephedrine (HED) PET, which is currently used to assess altered sympathetic nervous system (SNS) function. Altered SNS is associated with a variety of conditions including heart failure and sudden death.
The challenge in using C-11 HED is the short half-life of C-11-labeled tracers, which require an onsite cyclotron.
The study included six patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy, one person with nonischemic cardiomyopathy, and two healthy controls. All nine subjects underwent two separate PET scans within one week.
The first exam was performed with nitrogen-13 (N-13) ammonia and dynamic C-11 HED PET imaging. The second scan, conducted on a different day, was done with dynamic LMI 1195 PET.
Compared with C-11 HED, LMI 1195 appeared to provide comparable estimates of cardiac sympathetic nerve function and more favorable kinetics for early cardiac imaging, according to the company. The LMI 1195 retention index (r = 0.89, p < 0.0001) and defect score correlated highly with those of HED.
