Prospective comparison of [(18)F]AlF-NOTA-octreotide PET/MRI to [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT in neuroendocrine tumor patients

BACKGROUND: Fluorine-18-labeled SSAs have the potential to become the next-generation tracer in SSTR-imaging in neuroendocrine tumor (NET) patients given their logistical advantages over the current gold standard gallium-68-labeled SSAs. In particular, [(18)F]AlF-OC has already shown excellent clinical performance. We demonstrated in our previous report from our prospective multicenter trial that [(18)F]AlF-OC PET/CT outperforms [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTA-SSA, but histological confirmation was lacking due to ethical and practical reasons. In this second arm, we therefore aimed to provide evidence that the vast majority of [(18)F]AlF-OC PET lesions are in fact true NET lesions by analyzing their MR characteristics on simultaneously acquired MRI. We had a special interest in lesions solely detected by [(18)F]AlF-OC (“incremental lesions”). METHODS: Ten patients with a histologically confirmed neuroendocrine tumor (NET) and a standard-of-care [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT, performed within 3 months, were prospectively included. Patients underwent a whole-body PET/MRI (TOF, 3 T, GE Signa), 2 hours after IV injection of 4 MBq/kg [(18)F]AlF-OC. Positive PET lesions were evaluated for a corresponding lesion on MRI. The diagnostic performance of both PET tracers was evaluated by determining the detection ratio (DR) for each scan and the differential detection ratio (DDR) per patient. RESULTS: In total, 195 unique lesions were detected: 167 with [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTATATE and 193 with [(18)F]AlF-OC. The DR for [(18)F]AlF-OC was 99.1% versus 91.4% for [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTATATE, significant for non-inferiority testing (p = 0.0001). Out of these 193 [(18)F]AlF-OC lesions, 96.2% were confirmed by MRI to be NET lesions. Thirty-three incremental lesions were identified by [(18)F]AlF-OC, of which 91% were confirmed by MRI and considered true positives. CONCLUSION: The DR of [(18)F]AlF-OC was numerically higher and non-inferior to the DR of [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTATATE. [(18)F]AlF-OC lesions and especially incremental lesions were confirmed as true positives by MRI in more than 90% of lesions. Taken together, these data further validate [(18)F]AlF-OC as a new alternative for SSTR PET in clinical practice. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04552847. Registered 17 September 2020, https://beta.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04552847