Obstacles on the way to the clinical visualisation of beta cells: looking for the Aeneas of molecular imaging to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis

For more than a decade, researchers have been trying to develop non-invasive imaging techniques for the in vivo measurement of viable pancreatic beta cells. However, in spite of intense research efforts, only one tracer for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is currently under clinical evalu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Diabetologia 2012-05, Vol.55 (5), p.1247-1257
Main Authors: Andralojc, K., Srinivas, M., Brom, M., Joosten, L., de Vries, I. J. M., Eizirik, D. L., Boerman, O. C., Meda, P., Gotthardt, M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
Diabetes
Diabetes. Impaired glucose tolerance
Endocrine pancreas. Apud cells (diseases)
Endocrinopathies
Etiopathogenesis. Screening. Investigations. Target tissue resistance
Glucagon
Human Physiology
Humans
Insulin-Secreting Cells - diagnostic imaging
Insulin-Secreting Cells - transplantation
Internal Medicine
Islets of Langerhans Transplantation - diagnostic imaging
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Medical sciences
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Metabolic Diseases
Metabolism
Mice
Molecular Imaging - methods
Nuclear medicine
Pancreas
Peptides
Positron-Emission Tomography - methods
Rats
Review
Tomography
Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon - methods
Tumors
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Summary:For more than a decade, researchers have been trying to develop non-invasive imaging techniques for the in vivo measurement of viable pancreatic beta cells. However, in spite of intense research efforts, only one tracer for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is currently under clinical evaluation. To many diabetologists it may remain unclear why the imaging world struggles to develop an effective method for non-invasive beta cell imaging (BCI), which could be useful for both research and clinical purposes. Here, we provide a concise overview of the obstacles and challenges encountered on the way to such BCI, in both native and transplanted islets. We discuss the major difficulties posed by the anatomical and cell biological features of pancreatic islets, as well as the chemical and physical limits of the main imaging modalities, with special focus on PET, SPECT and MRI. We conclude by indicating new avenues for future research in the field, based on several remarkable recent results.
ISSN:0012-186X
1432-0428
DOI:10.1007/s00125-012-2491-7