Can 68Ga-DOTA Peptides Be Potential Radiotracers for PET Imaging of the Spleen?

On radionuclide somatostatin receptor imaging studies, the spleen shows high physiologic uptake. Reducing the intensity of the image settings helps to better assess the distribution of radiotracer in the spleen. In our routine studies, we incidentally recognized that 68Ga-DOTANOC PET provides higher-resolution splenic images than 111In-octreotide SPECT. Autoradiography and immunohistochemistry studies have shown that somatostatin receptors are located mainly in the red pulp of the spleen. The distribution of 68Ga-DOTANOC in the spleen appears to correlate with the distribution of red pulp. In this article, we present 68Ga-DOTANOC PET/CT spleen images of our patients.