Sugar rarely receives positive press – particularly in the BDJ – but according to researchers in San Francisco, a natural form of sugar could offer a new, non-invasive way to precisely image tumours and potentially see whether cancer medication is effective.

A new imaging technology developed at UC San Francisco in collaboration with GE Healthcare uses a compound called pyruvate, which is created when glucose breaks down in the body and which normally supplies energy to cells. In cancer, pyruvate is more frequently converted to lactate. Previous animal studies showed that scientists could track the levels of pyruvate converted to lactate via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), by using a technology called hyperpolarisation and injecting the hyperpolarised pyruvate into the body. The amount of lactate produced and rate of conversion enabled researchers to precisely detect the limits of a mouses tumour, identify which cancers were most aggressive and track early biochemical changes as tumours responded to medication, long before physical changes occurred.

Now, a 31-patient study performed by scientists at UCSF and their collaborators has shown that the technology is safe in humans and effectively detects tumours in patients with prostate cancer.1

This first in vivo human study lays the groundwork for using the technology to diagnose a variety of cancers and track treatment non-invasively, without conducting repeated biopsies.