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Plasma Kinetics and Biodistribution of a Lipid Emulsion Resembling Low-Density Lipoprotein in Patients with Acute Leukemia

The Heart Institute (InCor) and Department of Hematology and Hemotherapy (Hemocentro) of the São Paulo University Medical School Hospital, and Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) could be used as a carrier of chemotherapeutic agents to neoplastic cells that overexpress LDL receptors (rLDL), but LDL is difficult to obtain and handle. Recently, it was observed that a protein-free emulsion resembling the lipid portion of LDL (LDE) behave like native LDL when injected into the bloodstream. In this study, the evidence that LDE is taken up by rLDL was expanded by comparing LDL and LDE plasma decay curves in rabbits and by competition experiments with lymphocytes. To verify whether LDE could be removed from the plasma by neoplastic cells with increased rLDL, LDE labeled with ¹⁴Ccholesteryl ester was injected into 14 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and into 7 with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). In AML rLDL expression is increased but in ALL it is normal. LDE plasma fractional clearance rate (FCR, in h^-1) was calculated from the remaining radioactivity measured in plasma samples collected during 24 h following injection. LDE FCR was 3-fold greater in AML than in ALL patients 0.192 ± 0.210 (SD) and 0.066 ± 0.033 h^-1, respectively, P < 0.035. When LDE injection was repeated in 9 AML patients in hematological remission, LDE FCR diminished 66% compared to the pretreatment values (from 0.192 ± 0.210 to 0.065 ± 0.038 h^-1, P < 0.02), so that it could be estimated that nearly 66% of the emulsion was taken up by AML cells and only 34% by the normal tissues. As expected, LDE FCR was unchanged in 4 patients with ALL in hematological remission (0.069 ± 0.044 h^-1). Gamma camera images obtained 6 h after the injection of ^99mTc-labeled LDE into one patient with ALL showed biodistribution similar to that of LDL. In one AML patient LDE was comparatively more concentrated over the areas corresponding to the bone marrow infiltrated by AML cells. Our results indicate that LDE FCR is increased in a disease known to contain malignant cells that overexpress rLDL, suggesting that LDE is taken up by malignant cells with increased rLDL.

¹ To whom requests for reprints should be addressed at Instituto do Coracao HCFMUSP, Av. Dr. Eneas de Carvalho Aguiar, 44, 1° Andar, Sao Paulo, SP, 05403, Brazil.

Received 10/23/93. Accepted 6/28/94.

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