Hermes gold

A single radiologist (A.R.S), with 4 years’ experience, analyzed the imaging data. Primary lesions and metastases were identified on PET imaging and correlated with the CT images. Semi-automated spherical volumes between 1.5 cm and 3 cm in diameter were placed in normal organs (liver, pancreatic head and tail, spleen, renal cortices, blood pool at the aortic arch and bone marrow). In the primary tumor, and in all metastatic deposits >1 cm³, SUV_max, SUV_mean, SUV_peak, SUV standard deviation, and metabolic tumor volume (MTV) values were acquired using a 40% maximum activity threshold using Hermes GOLD™ (Hermes Medical Solutions, Stockholm, Sweden). To minimize the effect of partial volume, we used SUV_max as our primary comparative metric. Time–activity curves (TAC) for normal organs, primary tumors and metastases were produced using Graphpad Prism for macOS version 9.5.1, GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA, USA.

As soon as tumors reached a volume of approximately 500 mm³, 5 x 10⁵ HSP70B-NIS-MSCs were injected systemically via the tail vein every second day for a total of three times. 3 days later, regional hyperthermia was applied (41 °C or, as control, 37 °C for 1 h). The mice received 18.5 MBq (0.5 mCi) of ¹²³I (GE Healthcare Buchler GmBH & Co. KG, Braunschweig, Germany) intraperitoneally (i.p.) after 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 72 h and gamma camera imaging (e.cam, Siemens, Munich, Germany) was performed using a low-energy, high-resolution collimator. Intrinsic thyroidal iodide uptake was reduced by the addition of 5 mg/ml L-thyroxine (L-T4; Sigma Aldrich) to the drinking water ten days before ¹²³I administration. Using the HERMES GOLD (Hermes Medical Solutions, Stockholm, Sweden) software, regions of interest were evaluated and tumoral iodide uptake was calculated and expressed as percentage of injected dose (ID) per tumor (% ID/tumor). Using the Medical Internal Radiation Dose (MIRD) concept, dosimetry was calculated with a RADAR dose factor (www.doseinfo-radar.com).