BACKGROUND The mural thrombus of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) is involved in aneurysm progression via several interdependent biological processes including platelet activation. 99mTc-annexin V (ANX) is a scintigraphic tracer that binds to phosphatidylserine exposed on activated platelets and apoptotic cells. Here, we evaluated the potential of ANX imaging to assess mural thrombus biological...

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is characterized by the deposition of amyloid aggregates in the walls of the cerebral vasculature. Recently, the development of molecular imaging probes targeting CAA has been attracting much attention. We previously reported the 99mTc-hydroxamamide (99mTc-Ham) complex with a bivalent benzothiazole scaffold as a binding moiety for amyloid aggregates ([99mTc]BT2...

TO THE EDITOR: The recent paper in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine by Mochizuki et al. (1), concerning the targeting of 99mTc-annexin V to apoptotic cells in a tumor xenograft, is interesting with respect to the role of the spleen in the normal biodistribution of the radiotracer. Thus, apart from the kidneys, which are expected to appear prominent on images as a result of nonspecific tubular re...

BACKGROUND The P-glycoprotein inhibitor zosuquidar (LY335979) is clinically used to augment the effect of cytostatic drugs on suicidal tumor cell death or apoptosis. The present study explored whether the substance is cytotoxic to erythrocytes. Upon injury, erythrocytes may undergo suicidal cell death or eryptosis, which is characterized by cell shrinkage and translocation of cell membrane phos...

Scintigraphy with autologous granulocytes labelled by technetium-99m hexamethyl, propylene amine oxime (99mTc-HMPAO) was performed in 103 Crohn's disease patients and 52 healthy controls. In 31 patients endoscopic and histologic activity was compared with scan activity index. In the 98 patients with a positive scan, the extent of Crohn's disease, assessed by scintigraphy, was compared with that...

Annexins are a family of homologous proteins that associate with anionic phospholipid (aPL) in the presence of Ca(2+). Evidence that the function of one annexin type may be regulated by another was recently reported in studies investigating cytomegalovirus-aPL interactions, where the fusogenic function of annexin 2 (A2) was attenuated by annexin 5 (A5). This observation suggested that A2 may bi...

We have found using imaging techniques that stimulating Jurkat human leukaemic T-cells with ionomycin in the presence of FM1-43, a dye used to monitor exocytosis and endocytosis, causes large (6--10-fold) increases in FM1-43 fluorescence. These responses are too large to be caused by exocytosis. Instead, three lines of evidence suggest that FM1-43 is responding to phospholipid scrambling. First...

OBJECTIVES To study the ability of technetium-99m hexamethyl propylene amineoxime (HMPAO) labelled lymphocyte scintigraphy to quantify synovial inflammation, and to analyse the kinetics of lymphocyte retention in the joints of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS After isolation of the lymphocytes, the cells were radiolabelled in vitro with 250 MBq 99mTc-HMPAO. The scans were perf...