Posted on 09/09/2024 3:07:47 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are a class of immunotherapy that have revolutionized the treatment of cancer. However, they can cause a wide variety of autoimmune toxicities, including immune checkpoint inhibitor-associated acute kidney injury (ICI-AKI).
Differentiating ICI-AKI from acute kidney injury (AKI) due to alternative causes, is challenging without a kidney biopsy due to the risk of bleeding for some patients.
Tesearchers examined whether F18-FDG PET-CTs, a type of nuclear imaging study, could be used to distinguish patients with ICI-AKI from those with AKI from alternative causes.
They found that patients with ICI-AKI had much higher levels of radioactively-labeled glucose in the kidneys, indicating kidney inflammation, compared to patients with AKI from non-ICI causes.
The most common finding from kidney biopsies in patients with ICI-AKI is acute inflammation in the kidney as a result of activated T-cells. To diagnose this condition in current practice, patients must undergo a kidney biopsy.
In this study, the team sought to address these limitations and investigate the utility of F18-FDG PET-CTs as a way to non-invasively diagnose ICI-AKI.
The study included two control groups: patients with AKI from non-ICI etiologies and patients treated with ICIs who did not have AKI.
Nuclear radiologists reviewed the F18-FDG PET-CTs at baseline and follow-up and recorded the average radiotracer standardized uptake value (SUV) in the renal cortices. The SUV quantifies the amount of radioactively-labeled glucose in the kidneys, serving as a marker of the amount of inflammation and metabolic activity occurring in the kidneys.
The team calculated the average percent change in SUV from baseline to follow-up for each patient. The SUV mean increased by a median of 57.4% from baseline to follow-up among patients with ICI-AKI, whereas it only increased by 8.5% among patients with AKI from non-ICI causes and was unchanged in patients receiving ICIs without AKI.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.