After brain cancer treatment, a scan shows a spot, and sometimes no one can say what it is. A new FDA-approved drug aims to answer that question, and Indiana University Health says it is the first U.S. hospital system to give a patient Pixclara, a newly approved PET imaging drug for glioma, according to IU Health’s own announcement.
The problem is simple to describe and hard to live with. After surgery, radiation and chemo, an MRI can show a spot in the brain. Is it the tumor coming back, or scar tissue from the treatment? Sometimes the scan can’t say.
What the Pixclara brain cancer drug does
Pixclara (floretyrosine F 18) is a radioactive tracer used with a PET scan. The FDA approved it in September, and Telix Pharmaceuticals announced the approval on Sept. 14. It is described as the first FDA-approved FET-PET imaging drug for glioma.
The tracer is given by injection and targets cancer cells, which then show up on the scan. That helps doctors tell a returning tumor from harmless changes left behind by earlier treatment, as Radiology Business reported. The Indianapolis Business Journal says the approval covers adults and children with suspected glioma recurrence.
The first patient to get this glioma imaging drug
The first patient was Krystyna Chadzichristos of Illinois, who has glioblastoma. Her journey began in February 2025. Even after standard treatment, her MRI could not show whether she had tumor growth or scar tissue, according to WTHR’s report.
In late September, Dr. Na Tosha Gaston, who directs IU Health’s Center for Neuro-Oncology, gave her the drug. The scan showed her original tumor was stable. Afterward, Chadzichristos told WTHR she was “truly honored and special I am the number one person to go through this.”
Dr. Cindy Yuan, IU Health’s theranostics director, kept expectations grounded. The scan, she said, is “one extra data point to help us as an entire team make better treatment decisions for the patient.” In other words, it is one more piece of evidence, not a verdict by itself.
Why this brain tumor imaging agent matters beyond Indiana
Here’s the thing: this isn’t a new idea, just a late arrival. FET-PET is already part of standard care overseas, and international guidelines, including NCCN Guidelines, recommend it. American patients are only now getting the same option. It’s a familiar pattern, much like the long-awaited Parkinson’s pill Juvmo, where a long-established idea finally reached patients.
The stakes are real. Roughly 12,000 to 14,000 new glioma cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year, per the Indianapolis Business Journal. For those patients, a clearer picture can help decide whether to stay on a therapy or stop it. That is why a Pixclara PET scan could change daily treatment decisions.
IU says its teams have done more than 700 advanced brain tumor imaging scans through clinical research since 2020, which helped build the evidence behind the approval. UCSF also says its study data was instrumental. IU CEO Dennis Murphy said the physicians and researchers “have spent years advancing this work. Today, patients are benefiting from that expertise.”
A caveat on that “first” for the Pixclara brain cancer drug
The “first” label comes from IU Health itself. The Indianapolis Business Journal’s headline says the patient was “one of the first,” and it reports that the first commercial doses went out at the IU Health Neuroscience Center and a second site. We could not confirm the exact dosing date: WTHR says only “late September,” and IU announced it Oct. 6.
We also don’t know how fast other hospitals will follow, or what Pixclara will cost and whether insurers will pay for it. Drug pricing and coverage often shape who gets access, much like the questions around other fast-moving health stories that readers are following.
The question for patients and families is a plain one: will this scan reach them, and how soon?
