Katherine A Zukotynski

• Partners HealthCare

35 Background: PREP was initiated in Ontario to provide access and characterize performance of PSMA PET CT among men with recurrent prostate cancer after primary definitive treatment (RP or RT). Methods: Between 03/18 and 09/22, 4135 men were accrued. Men were enrolled and imaged with 18F-DCFPyL at 1 of 6 participating sites within 1 of 6 clinical...

Background White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are commonly observed on MRI in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but the molecular pathways underlying their relationships with the ATN biomarkers remain unclear. The aim of this study was to identify genetic variants that may modify the relationship between WMH and the ATN biomarkers. Method This genome‐wid...

Introduction: This study aimed to assess the detection rate of prostate cancer recurrence by prostate-specific member antigen positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PSMA-PET/CT) with 18F-DCFPyL in patients with residual disease or biochemical recurrence (BCR), and its association with surgical pathology and prostate-specific antigen (PSA...

Objective Approximately 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy and 8–17% of the deaths in patients with epilepsy are attributed to sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). The goal of the present work was to establish a biomarker for SUDEP so that preventive treatment can be instituted. Approach Seizure activity in patients with SUDEP and n...

Purpose This study examines the diagnostic accuracy of brain perfusion SPECT for mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Patients and Methods A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed according to PRISMA guidelines (PROSPERO: CRD42023484636). Five databases were searched for studies evaluating brain perfusion SPECT in adult patients with mTB...

Interreader and intrareader reproducibility of 18F-flotufolastat PET/CT scans in newly diagnosed and recurrent prostate cancer patients was assessed from masked image evaluations from two phase 3 studies. Methods: 18F-flotufolastat PET/CT images of newly diagnosed (n = 352) or recurrent (n = 389) patients were evaluated by 3 masked readers. Cohen κ...

INTRODUCTION Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) and amyloid beta (Aβ) pathology frequently co‐exist. The impact of concurrent pathology on the pattern of hippocampal atrophy, a key substrate of memory impacted early and extensively in dementia, remains poorly understood. METHODS In a unique cohort of mixed Alzheimer's disease and moderate–severe...

Objective Approximately 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy and 8-17% of the deaths in patients with epilepsy are attributed to sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). The goal of the present work was to establish a biomarker for SUDEP so that preventive treatment can be instituted. Approach Seizure activity in patients with SUDEP and n...

There is a growing use of radionuclide therapy for the medical care of oncology patients, where radioactive pharmaceuticals are used to target and treat various cancer types. This paper provides a brief overview illustrating the spectrum of ongoing and recently completed radionuclide therapy clinical trials in oncology. The trials selected highligh...

Background White matter hyperintensities (WMH) of presumed vascular origin commonly coincide with neurodegeneration. Previous studies reported heterogeneous relationships between WMH and atrophy. Cytochrome P450s CYP2J2, CYP2C8, and CYP2C9 are involved in the vascular ischemic response and soluble epoxide hydrolase (EPHX2) metabolizes its products,...

Acute right upper quadrant pain is one of the most common presenting symptoms in hospital emergency departments, as well as outpatient settings. Although gallstone-related acute cholecystitis is a leading consideration in diagnosis, a myriad of extrabiliary sources including hepatic, pancreatic, gastroduodenal, and musculoskeletal should also be co...

Introduction Previous case-control studies of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) patients failed to identify ECG features (peri-ictal heart rate, heart rate variability, corrected QT interval, postictal heart rate recovery, and cardiac rhythm) predictive of SUDEP risk. This implied a need to derive novel metrics to assess SUDEP risk from E...

Background: Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) - positron emission tomography (PET) guides metastasis-directed radiotherapy (MDRT) in prostate cancer (PrCa). However, its value as a treatment response assessment tool after MDRT remains unclear. Importantly, there is limited understanding of the potential of radiotherapy (RT) to alter PSMA g...

309 Background: The participants are patients enrolled in the PSMA-PET Registry for Recurrent Prostate Cancer (PREP) who were referred for [18F]-DCFPyL PET/CT at our institution in Hamilton, Canada. The Registry is the only funded access to PSMA PET/CT for patients in Ontario. Methods: Our analysis includes all men who had a PSMA PET/CT on the Regi...

45 Background: In Ontario, PSMA-PET is available to patients with prostate cancer who experience biochemical failure after definitive primary RT (pRT) or salvage/adjuvant RT (sRT) through a provincial registry study (PREP protocol). Here we review patterns of PSMA-PET-detected failure after primary (pRT) or salvage/adjuvant RT (sRT) radiotherapy (R...

Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted positron emission tomography (PET) is rapidly becoming widely accepted as the standard-of-care for imaging of men with prostate cancer. Labeled indications for regulatoryapproved agents include primary staging and recurrent disease in men at risk of metastases. The first commercial PSMA PET agent t...

White matter (WM) injury is frequently observed along with dementia. Positron emission tomography with amyloid-ligands (Aβ-PET) recently gained interest for detecting WM injury. Yet, little is understood about the origin of the altered Aβ-PET signal in WM regions. Here, we investigated the relative contributions of diffusion MRI-based microstructur...

Background Detection of skeletal metastases in patients with prostate cancer or breast cancer remains a major clinical challenge. We aimed to compare the diagnostic performance of 99mTc-methylene diphosphonate (99mTc-MDP) single-photon emission CT (SPECT) and ¹⁸F-sodium fluoride (¹⁸F-NaF) PET–CT for the detection of osseous metastases in patients w...

This document focuses on imaging in the adult and pregnant populations with right lower quadrant (RLQ) abdominal pain, including patients with fever and leukocytosis. Appendicitis remains the most common surgical pathology responsible for RLQ abdominal pain in the United States. Other causes of RLQ pain include right colonic diverticulitis, uretera...

Cerebrovascular disease encompasses a broad spectrum of diseases such as stroke, hemorrhage, and cognitive decline associated with vascular narrowing, obstruction, rupture, and inflammation, among other issues. Recent advances in hardware and software have led to improvements in brain PET. Although still in its infancy, machine learning using convo...

It remains unclear to what extent cerebrovascular burden relates to amyloid beta (Aβ) deposition, neurodegeneration, and cognitive dysfunction in mixed disease populations with small vessel disease and Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. In 120 subjects, we investigated the association of vascular burden (white matter hyperintensity [WMH] volumes)...

Introduction: Detection of skeletal metastases in prostate and breast cancer patients remains a major clinical challenge. This study aimed to compare the diagnostic performance of technetium methylene-diphosphonate single photon emission computed tomography (99mTc-MDP SPECT) and 18F-sodium fluoride positron emission tomography/computed tomography (...

TPS5110 Background: [ ¹⁷⁷ Lu]Lu-PSMA-617 improves outcome in men with metastatic, PSMA positive CRPC post androgen pathway inhibitor therapy and taxane chemotherapy compared to standard care (excluding chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radium-223 and investigational drugs; Sartor et al, NEJM 2021). The relative efficacy, adverse event experience and imp...

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is the leading seizure-related cause of death in epilepsy patients. There are no validated biomarkers of SUDEP risk. Here, we explored peri-ictal differences in topological brain network properties from scalp EEG recordings of SUDEP victims. Functional connectivity networks were constructed and examined a...

Background Positron emission tomography targeting the prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA PET/CT) has demonstrated unparalleled performance as a staging examination for prostate cancer resulting in substantial changes in management. However, the impact of altered management on patient outcomes is largely unknown. This study aims to assess the...

Background The high positivity rate of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET in the setting of biochemical failure (BCF), even when conventional imaging is negative, is promising. Purpose To assess the disease detection rate of PSMA-based PET/CT with fluorine 18-DCFPyL as a radiotracer and the PET-directed management change in men with susp...

Artificial intelligence (AI) in medical imaging is in its infancy. However, ongoing advances in hardware and software as well as increasing access to ever-expanding datasets for training, validation, and testing purposes are likely to make AI an increasingly prevalent and powerful tool. Of course issues, such as the need to protect the privacy of s...

The ability of a computer to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence or artificial intelligence (AI) is not new. However, until recently, practical applications in medical imaging were limited, especially in the clinic. With advances in theory, microelectronic circuits, and computer architecture as well as our ability to acquire and acc...

INTRODUCTION: It remains unclear to which extent vascular burden promotes neurodegeneration and cognitive dysfunction in a cohort spanning low-to-severe small vessel disease (SVD) and amyloid-beta pathology. METHODS: In 120 subjects, we investigated 1) whether vascular burden, quantified as total or lobar white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volumes,...

White matter (WM) injury is frequently observed along with dementia. Positron emission tomography with amyloid-ligands (Aβ-PET) recently gained interest for detecting WM injury. Yet, little is understood about the origin of the altered Aβ-PET signal in WM regions. Here, we investigated the relative contributions of diffusion MRI-based microstructur...

Background Small vessel disease (SVD) often co‐exists with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology (up to 60%) and may facilitate AD progression. However, SVD is currently not integrated as a pathological factor within the ATN research criteria. Up to now, the majority of studies that investigated effects of SVD on brain atrophy and cognition were limit...

Background: White matter hyperintensities (WMH) of presumed vascular origin commonly coincide with neurodegeneration. Previous studies have reported heterogeneous relationships between WMH and atrophy. Cytochrome P450 (CYP) 2J2 (CYP2J2) is involved in the vascular ischemic response and soluble epoxide hydrolase (EPHX2) metabolizes its products, wh...

Purpose Our purpose was to evaluate intra-prostatic cancer volumes for salvage radiotherapy in men with recurrent prostate cancer confined to the prostate post-primary radiotherapy using mpMRI and 18F-DCFPyL PET/CT (PET). Methods Men with biochemical failure post-primary radiotherapy were enrolled in a multi-centre trial investigating mpMRI and PE...

We highlight emerging uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of theranostics, focusing on its significant potential to enable routine and reliable personalization of radiopharmaceutical therapies (RPTs). Personalized RPTs require patient-specific dosimetry calculations accompanying therapy. Additionally we discuss the potential to exploi...

The recent advances and availability of computer hardware, software tools, and massive digital data archives have enabled the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Concerns over whether AI tools can "communicate" decisions to radiologists and primary care physicians is of particular importance because automated clinical de...

Precision medicine integrates molecular pathobiology, genetic make-up, and clinical manifestations of disease in order to classify patients into subgroups for the purposes of predicting treatment response and suggesting outcome. By identifying those patients who are most likely to benefit from a given therapy, interventions can be tailored to avoid...

In the past decade the management of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) underwent a paradigm shift towards the use of risk-stratification with the goal of maximizing benefit and minimizing morbidity of radioiodine (131I) therapy. 131I therapy is guided by information derived from surgical histopathology, molecular markers, postoperative diagnostic...

We highlight emerging uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of theranostics, focusing on its significant potential to enable routine and reliable personalization of radiopharmaceutical therapies (RPTs). Personalized RPTs require patient-individual dosimetry calculations accompanying therapy. Image-based dosimetry needs: 1) quantitative...

A new era of precision diagnostics and therapy for patients with neuroendocrine neoplasms began with the approval of somatostatin receptor (SSTR) radiopharmaceuticals for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging followed by peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT). With the transition from SSTR-based gamma scintigraphy to PET, the higher sens...

Purpose 99mTc‐MDP single‐photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is an established tool for diagnosing lumbar stress, a common cause of low back pain (LBP) in pediatric patients. However, detection of small stress lesions is complicated by the low quality of SPECT, leading to significant interreader variability. The study objectives were to dev...

5064 Background: Several lesion-targeted therapies exist for locally recurrent or limited stage metastatic prostate cancer (PCa) post-radiotherapy (RT) and radical prostatectomy (RP). However, detection of disease sites is limited using conventional imaging (CI) including computed tomography (CT) and bone scan. Prostate specific membrane antigen (P...

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) or the study of how computers and machines can gain intelligence, has been increasingly applied to problems in medical imaging, and in particular to molecular imaging of the central nervous system. Many AI innovations in medical imaging include improving image quality, segmentation, and automating class...

Rationale: We evaluated K-means clustering to classify amyloid brain PETs as positive or negative. Patients and methods: Sixty-six participants (31 men, 35 women; age range, 52-81 years) were recruited through a multicenter observational study: 19 cognitively normal, 25 mild cognitive impairment, and 22 dementia (11 Alzheimer disease, 3 subcorti...

Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted positron emission tomography (PET) is increasingly being used worldwide as part of the clinical workup for men with prostate cancer. With high overall accuracy for the detection of prostate cancer, PSMA-targeted PET has an increasingly established role in the setting of biochemical failure after pr...

Purpose: Positron emission tomography (PET) with small molecules targeting prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is being adopted as a clinical standard for prostate cancer (PCa) imaging. In this study, we evaluated changes in uptake on PSMA-targeted PET in men starting abiraterone or enzalutamide. Methods: This prospective, single-arm, two-cen...

Since 1989, four Canadian Consensus Conferences on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia (CCCDTDs) have provided evidence‐based dementia diagnostic and treatment guidelines for Canadian clinicians and researchers. We present the results from the Neuroimaging and Fluid Biomarkers Group of the 5th CCCDTD (CCCDTD5), which addressed topics chosen by...

Introduction PSMA targeted PET/CT is a “Next Generation Imaging” technique with superior sensitivity and specificity for detecting recurrent prostate cancer compared with conventional imaging, allowing more accurate staging and re-staging. Areas covered This article reviews the role of PSMA targeted PET/CT in the clinical management of men with re...

The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging created the Value Initiative in 2017 as a major component of its strategic plan to further demonstrate the value of molecular imaging and molecularly targeted radiopharmaceutical therapy to patients, physicians, payers, and funding agencies. The research and discovery domain, 1 of 5 under the Va...

A 35-year-old man with a history of renal transplant, congenital cystinosis, and diabetes was admitted to the hospital with fever, bilateral parotid gland swelling, and acute renal failure. He had 99mTc-HMPAO-WBC (99mTc-hexamethylpropyleneamineoxime white blood cell) imaging for the evaluation of possible parotitis. There was intense radiopharmaceu...

This article is the second part in our machine learning series. Part 1 provided a general overview of machine learning in nuclear medicine. Part 2 focuses on neural networks. We start with an example illustrating how neural networks work and a discussion of potential applications. Recognizing there is a spectrum of applications, we focus on recent...

We describe the case of a 75-year-old patient who progressed over a 12-year period from localized to symptomatic metastatic prostate cancer (PrCa) with lung as the sole organ of involvement. In this case, the specific sequence of positron emission tomography (PET)-based next-generation imaging with 18F-sodium fluoride-, 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose...

Purpose Our purpose was to investigate the effect of the addition of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in patients with recurrent prostate cancer post-primary radiation therapy. Methods and Materials A prospective, multi-institutional clinical trial evaluated 2-(3-{1-carbox...

A 51-year-old man diagnosed with high-grade, high-volume metastatic castration-sensitive prostate adenocarcinoma received pelvic radiation, androgen deprivation therapy, and intravenous docetaxel. Serum prostate-specific antigen became undetectable following treatment. Within a year, his cancer progressed to castration-resistant disease, and he was...

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate random forests (RFs) to identify ROIs on F-florbetapir and F-FDG PET associated with Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score. Materials and methods: Fifty-seven subjects with significant white matter disease presenting with either transient ischemic attack/lacunar stroke or mild cognitive impairm...

Imaging is essential in the detection, diagnosis, staging, and monitoring of men with prostate cancer. Over the past decade, technical advancements have led to improved sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of disease detection. Further advances in the availability and use of radiopharmaceuticals for imaging and therapy in men with prostate cancer...

23 Background: We hypothesized ¹⁸ F-DCFPyL (PSMA-based tracer) and/ or ¹⁸ F-FDG (glucose metabolism-based tracer) PET/CT might provide different/complementary molecular imaging information in men with mCRPC treated with abiraterone (A) or enzalutamide (E). Methods: In this prospective cohort study (MISTER trial) mCRPC patients (pts) had conventiona...

The use of skeletal scintigraphy with technetium-99 methylene diphosphonate (hereafter referred to as a bone scan) for evaluating response to systemic treatment in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) is an evolving paradigm in this era of advancing therapies and imaging techniques. Indeed, the interpretation of bone sca...

Molecular and functional imaging aims to assess oncologic therapy response by integrating molecular and functional tumor biology in order to assess therapeutic efficacy and improve patient outcome. Most oncologic processes reflect heterogeneous disease both functionally and morphologically. Further, clonal proliferations of cells may evolve with ti...

Purpose: Radio-recurrent prostate cancer is typically detected by a rising PSA and may reflect local or distant disease. PET radiotracers targeting PSMA such as 18F-DCFPyL have shown promise in restaging men with recurrent disease post-prostatectomy but are less well characterized in the setting of radio-recurrent disease. Materials and methods:...

Purpose: To evaluate random forests (RFs) as a supervised machine learning algorithm to classify amyloid brain PET as positive or negative for amyloid deposition and identify key regions of interest for stratification. Methods: The data set included 57 baseline F-florbetapir (Amyvid; Lilly, Indianapolis, IN) brain PET scans in participants with...

The number of cases of dementia has dramatically increased over the last decade. Imaging the brain with PET has been used for many years, but in the past decade the radiopharmaceuticals and technology available for imaging dementia has vastly improved. In recent years, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved three PET radi...

TPS3152 Background: Type I insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF-1R) is a transmembrane protein which is overexpressed in solid tumors including non–small cell lung, prostate, and breast cancers. [ ²²⁵ Ac]-FPI-1434 is a radioimmunoconjugate consisting of a humanized monoclonal antibody that binds to the external domain of IGF-1R, a proprietary b...

This article, the first in a 2-part series, provides an introduction to machine learning (ML) in a nuclear medicine context. This part addresses the history of ML and describes common algorithms, with illustrations of when they can be helpful in nuclear medicine. Part 2 focuses on current contributions of ML to our field, addresses future expectati...

The purpose of this study was to assess image quality and quantitative brain PET across a multicenter consortium. Methods: All academic centers and children's hospitals in the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium (PBTC) scanned a phantom developed by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Clinical Trials Network (SNMMI CTN) for the valid...

There are recent advances, namely, a standardized method for reporting therapy response (Hopkins criteria), a multicenter prospective cohort study with excellent negative predictive value of F-FDG PET/CT for N0 clinical neck, a phase III multicenter randomized controlled study establishing the value of a negative posttherapy F-FDG PET/CT for patien...

A 76-year-old man with biochemical failure after primary radiotherapy for prostate cancer had no malignant disease detected on Tc-MDP bone scan and diagnostic CT. Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), a type II transmembrane glycoprotein, is overexpressed in prostate cancer cells. The PSMA-targeted F-DCFPyL PET/CT demonstrated lymph node disea...

In recent years, several new radiotracers and radionuclide therapies have been developed. There is a renaissance in nuclear medicine and molecular imaging today, for example, in terms of the ability to image and treat neuroendocrine and prostate malignancies. In order to be able to bring a new drug product from bench to bedside and assist patients,...

Objective: In this article, we review the literature on PET/CT in the management of dementia, present evidence for best clinical practices, and discuss recent advances in the field. Conclusion: Standard-of-care imaging for dementia includes CT and MRI, primarily for excluding vascular lesions or masses, detecting atrophy, and monitoring disease...

Background Cabozantinib can enhance the effect of abiraterone in preclinical prostate cancer models. This study aimed to define the recommended phase 2 dose (RP2D) and preliminary efficacy of abiraterone + cabozantinib in mCRPC. Methods Patients with progressive mCRPC with 0‐2 prior chemotherapy regimens but no prior CYP17A1 or MET inhibitor recei...