Poster reveals continuing positive results for imaging of endometriosis with 99mTc-maraciclatide

Serac Healthcare and the Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health at the University of Oxford have presented further data from the DETECT (Detecting endometriosis expressed integrins using technetium-99m) imaging study, indicating that 99mTcmaraciclatide is capable of imaging superficial peritoneal endometriosis, the earliest stage of the disease. The data was presented in a poster by study investigator Dr Tatjana Gibbons from the University of Oxford, at the seventh European Endometriosis Congress, held in Bucharest, Romania.

The poster builds on data previously presented in March and provides a summary of the first 10 patients in the DETECT study with known or suspected endometriosis who were imaged with a SPECT/CT camera and subsequently underwent planned laparoscopic surgery to establish the presence or absence and location of endometriotic lesions. Imaging findings were compared to the surgical and histology reports and indicate that 99mTc-maraciclatide has potential as a noninvasive test for early stage endometriosis. The poster provides summary information on the patient populations and the numbers of lesions identified by imaging.

Findings indicate that 99mTc-maraciclatide correctly identified superficial peritoneal endometriosis in those who went on to have this early stage endometriosis confirmed by laparoscopy. Superficial peritoneal endometriosis that is found in the thin peritoneum lining that covers the abdomen and pelvis was the most common visualised lesion. Currently these can only be identified accurately by surgery and this sub-type accounts for around 80 per cent of all endometriosis diagnoses. Deep disease and endometrioma were also identified by 99mTc-maraciclatide and correlated with findings from laparoscopy.

The poster concludes that visualising angiogenic integrins could aid in the non-invasive detection of endometriosis and could help address the challenges of detecting superficial disease. It is anticipated that the study will complete later this year.

99mTc-maraciclatide is a radiolabelled tracer that binds with high affinity to the cell adhesion protein avb3 integrin and images angiogenesis, which is known to be critical to the establishment
and growth of endometriotic lesions.

Serac Healthcare ceo David Hail said: “The promising initial findings have been further confirmed by more patients in this study, indicating the very exciting possibility that maraciclatide has potential as a non-invasive method of detecting early stage endometriosis. The ability to visualise endometriosis without the need for invasive surgery could significantly reduce the average delay of nine years for a diagnosis. We look forward to completing this study with the world-class team at Oxford University and we are now looking ahead to phase III study design.”

Picture: Images from the DETECT study. Image: Professor Christian Becker at Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health, University of Oxford.

Published on page 19 of the July 2024 issue of RAD Magazine.