Cherenkov luminescence imaging is a fast and relevant preclinical tool to assess tumour hypoxia in vivo

PURPOSE: Molecular imaging techniques visualise biomarkers for both drug development and personalised medicine. In this field, Cherenkov luminescence imaging (CLI) seems to be very attractive by allowing imaging with clinical PET radiotracers with high-throughput capabilities. In this context, we developed a fast CLI method to detect tumour hypoxia with (18)F-fluoromisonidazole (FMISO) for drug development purposes. METHODS: Colon cancer model was induced in mice by subcutaneous injection of 1 × 10(6) CT-26 cells. FMISO was injected, and simultaneous PET-blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD)-MRI followed by CLI were performed along with immunohistochemistry staining with pimonidazole. RESULTS: There was a significant correlation between FMISO PET and CLI tumour uptakes, consistent with the BOLD-MRI mapping. Tumour-to-background ratio was significantly higher for CLI compared with PET and MRI. Immunohistochemistry confirmed tumour hypoxia. The imaging workflow with CLI was about eight times faster than the PET-MRI procedure. CONCLUSION: CLI is a fast and relevant tool to assess tumour hypoxia. This approach could be particularly interesting for hypoxia-targeting drug development. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13550-018-0464-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.