1Department of Oncology, 2Department of Nuclear Medicine, The Second Affi liated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310009, China
3Zhejiang University Medical PET Center, 4Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310009, China
5Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Imaging of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou 310009, China
6Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Kafr El Sheikh University, Kafr el-Sheikh, Egypt
7Department of Pathology, The Children’s Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310003, China
#These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract 

To evaluate the effect of bevacizumab on cerebral ischemia, we used 2-deoxy-2-18F-fluoro-D-glucose (18F-FDG) small-animal positron emission tomography (PET) in the middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) rat model. After baseline neurologic function tests and PET studies, MCAO Sprague-Dawley rats received bevacizumab or normal saline (controls). Weekly PET imaging and neurologic function tests showed that the 18F-FDG accumulation in the bevacizumab group was similar to that in the controls during the first 2 weeks, but lower than in controls at weeks 3 and 4. However, no difference was found in neurological scores between the groups. The number of von Willebrand factor-positive cells in the bevacizumab group was lower than that in controls. The expression of vascular endothelial growth factor was higher than in controls at week 4. These results suggested that bevacizumab does not influence functional recovery in this model of cerebral ischemia during a 4-week period, but inhibits vascular formation and metabolic recovery, which may be considered in cancer patients with a recent ischemic stroke.

Keywords

cerebral ischemia; bevacizumab; positron emission tomography; cancer

[SpringerLink]