The Value of 68Ga-FAPI PET/CT for Evaluating Peritoneal Treatment Response

Description:

Peritoneal metastases (PM), commonly originating from gastrointestinal and ovarian cancers, are associated with a poor prognosis and limited treatment options due to the diffuse nature of the disease and the inability of systemic chemotherapy to adequately penetrate the peritoneal surface. Intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy has emerged as a potential treatment modality for patients with extensive PM, allowing for higher local drug concentrations while minimizing systemic toxicity. However, current response evaluation methods, such as CT scans, have low sensitivity for detecting PM, and second-look laparoscopy, although more accurate, is invasive and unsuitable for repeated assessments. The ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI PET/CT scan offers a promising non-invasive alternative for assessing peritoneal response to IP chemotherapy. This imaging technique targets the fibroblast activation protein, which is overexpressed in cancer-associated fibroblasts within the tumor microenvironment. Early studies have shown that ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI PET/CT is a highly sensitive too in detecting peritoneal metastases. Given these advantages, the investigators hypothesize that ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI PET/CT could improve the evaluation of treatment response in patients undergoing IP chemotherapy for PM, offering a non-invasive and accurate alternative to current methods. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the accuracy of ⁶⁸Ga-FAPI PET/CT for evaluating peritoneal response in patients with peritoneal metastases undergoing repeated IP chemotherapy.