Presentation of data where FG001 demonstrates dose-depended effectiveness in lightening up glioblastoma in a preclinical model
News
September 7, 2019
Despite several decades of effort in improving the standard therapy of Glioblastoma (GBM), an aggressive form of cancer in the brain, the average life expectancy after a GBM diagnosis is only 14 months. Surgery in combination with radiation and adjuvant chemotherapy is standard of care for patient with GBM. High precision is particularly important in GBM surgery to radically remove the GBM without creating unnecessary side-effects for the patients.
FG001, a uPAR target fluorescent molecule, was in this study injected intravenously before imaging. The primary aim of this study was to determine the optimal dose and useful time-window of FG001 in an orthotopic human xenograft GBM model. FG001 has previously been demonstrated to lighten up GBM, however, as a preparation for the forthcoming clinical study in humans, FG001 was in this study tested in different doses to help planning the design of the clinical study.
Doses of 1, 2.5, 5, or 10 nmol of FG001 was administered intravenously prior to removal of the glioblastoma cancer. The mouse was then imaged with a near-infrared (NIR) camera, VisionSense, to determine the tumor-to-background ratio (TBR). After determination of the optimal dose, a new group of mice was included and operated using optical guidance from the fluorescent signal. The highest mean TBR value was 8.7 was found at a dose of 5 nmol with almost the same TBR found at 2.5 nmol. The TBR at 2.5 and 5 nmol were approximately 3-fold higher than at 1 nmol (p=< 0.01). Compared to 2.5 and 5 nmol, there was no additional improvement of TBR by increasing the dose to 10 nmol.
“FG001 again showed that it lightens up human brain cancer and an optimal dose giving a high visibility and contrast to the background has been now been determined as an important information for designing the forthcoming clinical study” says Morten Albrechtsen, CEO of FluoGuide, and further comments: “Yet another equipment for NIR imaging was used used together with FG001 in this study compared to the data presented yesterday on FG001 guided surgical resection of metastatic pancreatic cancer. This illustrates the important fact that FG001 is compatible with a broad range of types of equipment.”
PhD student Karina Juhl from Rigshospitalet and University of Copenhagen, presenting the data concluding that: “Orthotopic xenograft glioblastoma was clearly delineated from healthy tissue by optical imaging using the uPAR targeted optical probe FG001 and the ex vivo fluorescent signal co-localized with uPAR expression. A dose of 2.5 – 5 nmol FG001 was demonstrated to create the optimal TBR and visibility.”