Quantifying Metabolic Heterogeneity in Head and Neck Tumors in Real Time: 2-DG Uptake Is Highest in Hypoxic Tumor Regions

Intratumoral metabolic heterogeneity may increase the likelihood of treatment failure due to the presence of a subset of resistant tumor cells. Using a head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) xenograft model and a real-time fluorescence imaging approach, we tested the hypothesis that tumors are metabolically heterogeneous, and that tumor hypoxia alters patterns of glucose uptake within the tumor.F-FDG) uptake in clinical PET scans.F-FDG uptake within patient HNSCC tumors, and the degree of heterogeneity varied amongst tumors.F-FDG PET scans may be used to stratify patients according to the metabolic heterogeneity within their tumors, which could be an indicator of prognosis