18F-FluorApoTrace(Washington University School of Medicine)

Apoptosis is a specific form of cell death that leads to clearance of dead cells without causing inflammation or injury to normal adjacent tissues. Targeted cancer therapeutics that target this pathway for tumor cell death induction are in development, but few specific biomarkers of apoptosis are available to assess treatment response. Apoptosis also occurs in response to standard anthracycline or combination therapies such as rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisolone (R-CHOP), rituximab, etoposide, phosphate, prednisone, vincristine sulfacte, cyclophosphamide, and doxorubicin hydrocholoride (R-EPOCH) used to treat many different histopathological types of lymphoma including Hodgkin and non- Hodgkin lymphoma such as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), Burkitts lymphoma, primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma and double hit DLBCL. Caspase-3 activation occurs as a result of apoptosis and may be a specific marker of apoptosis. Therefore, this study will assess whether 18F-FluorApoTrace (18F-FAT), a caspase-3 targeted tracer, has a reasonable dosimetry profile and can be used to detect apoptosis in patients with lymphoma being treated with standard therapy.