Usefulness of gallium-67 scintigraphy for evaluating the histopathological activity in interstitial nephritis

Quantitative evaluation of 67Ga-citrate scintigraphy in the management of nephritis

In 67Ga-citrate scintigraphy (Ga-S), visual assessment is used by evaluating renal-uptake comparison with liver and spine and is simple and objective. We adopted the standardized uptake value (SUV) for 67Ga-citrate and proposed two quantitative indices, active nephritis volume (ANV) and total nephritis uptake (TNU). This study clarified the utility of new Ga-S-based quantitative indices in nephritis management. Before SUV measurement, the Becquerel calibration factor of 67Ga-citrate was obtained using a phantom experiment. Seventy patients who underwent SPECT/CT imaging were studied. SUV, ANV, and TNU were calculated using a quantitative analysis software for bone SPECT. SUVmean, ANV, and TNU were analyzed using the (1) threshold method (set 40%) and constant-value method for (2) vertebral SUVmax, and (3) vertebral SUVmean. ROC analysis was used to evaluate SUV, ANV, and TNU diagnostic abilities to distinguish nephritis presence and absence as well as interstitial nephritis (IN) and non-IN. The area under the curve (AUC) for nephritis presence or absence had a good value (0.80) for SUVmean (1), ANV (3), and TNU (3). The AUC for differentiation between IN and non-IN groups had a good value (0.80) for SUVmean (1). Thus, the new Ga-S-based quantitative indices were useful to evaluate nephritis and distinguish IN and non-IN.

New Stable Gallium(III) and Indium(III) Complexes with Thiosemicarbazone Ligands: A Biological Evaluation

The aim of this work is to explore a new library of coordination compounds for medicinal applications. Gallium is known for its various applications in this field. Presently, indium is not particularly important in medicine, but it shares a lot of chemical traits with its above-mentioned lighter companion, gallium, and is also used in radio imaging. These metals are combined with thiosemicarbazones, ligating compounds increasingly known for their biological and pharmaceutical applications. In particular, the few ligands chosen to interact with these hard metal ions share the ideal affinity for a high charge density. Therefore, in this work we describe the synthesis and the characterization of the resulting coordination compounds. The yields of the reactions vary from a minimum of 21% to a maximum of 82%, using a fast and easy procedure. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Infra Red (IR) spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, elemental analysis, and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) confirm the formation of stable compounds in all cases and a ligand-to-metal 2:1 stoichiometry with both cations. In addition, we further investigated their chemical and biological characteristics, via UV-visible titrations, stability tests, and cytotoxicity and antibiotic assays. The results confirm a strong stability in all explored conditions, which suggests that these compounds are more suitable for radio imaging applications rather than for antitumoral or antimicrobic ones.