Theranostics is becoming mainstream in oncology. The interaction of radiopharmaceutical imaging with therapy, including both standard therapeutic drugs and radiopharmaceuticals targeted for radiotherapy, is the driving force of the field, opening new ways of treating patients. Driven by the FDA approval of 177Lu-DOTATATE in 2018, and the encouraging results of the 177Lu-PSMA-617 phase 3 VISION trial this year, the nuclear medicine community is experiencing an extraordinary optimism for the future of the profession. A series of theranostic radiopharmaceuticals aimed at a variety of molecular targets and diseases are now rapidly entering early clinical trials, representing promise for downstream growth in the field. The ongoing remarkable growth of radiopharmaceutical therapy, research, and development continue to advance both at academic medical centres and in industry. This Research Topic will focus on providing an overview of the rich pipeline of radiopharmaceutical therapy, from understanding the fundamentals of biology to the connection to imaging, and how that leads to radiopharmaceutical approaches to generate cutting-edge clinical and scientific information regarding theranostics.
Nuclear medicine is not just a diagnostic specialty, but part of a team tailoring therapy both for patients with both nonradioactive drugs and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals. The focus on therapy requires a more complicated proof of safety and efficacy—with the need to show how using imaging guides treatment to achieve better therapy outcomes. Accordingly, our goal is to provide a collection of advanced knowledge regarding the use of therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, from the earliest nuclear medicine theranostic (radioiodine) and approved theranostics for metastatic paragangliomas and gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. We will also discuss the therapeutic benefits and safety of current PSMA-based agents for patients with prostate cancer and the scope of using this novel radiotherapy for other non-prostate malignancies. Regarding the next generation of theranostics, we plan to include the latest information on the promise of fibroblast activation protein-targeted agents. Harnessing the immune system for therapeutic benefit has been difficult to predict, so we will provide a collection of recently developed imaging agents using numerous low-molecular weight, antibody and antibody fragments based agents in this context. There is a rapidly evolving work using pretargeting techniques for imaging and even radiotherapy.
Our Research Topic will cover a wide scope of current and emerging approaches to theranostics. In particular, we will not focus on existing clinical standards-of-care such as Lutathera for neuroendocrine tumors, but will instead gear the Research Topic towards emerging applications of existing radiotracers and new radiotracers.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
Theranostics is becoming mainstream in oncology. The interaction of radiopharmaceutical imaging with therapy, including both standard therapeutic drugs and radiopharmaceuticals targeted for radiotherapy, is the driving force of the field, opening new ways of treating patients. Driven by the FDA approval of 177Lu-DOTATATE in 2018, and the encouraging results of the 177Lu-PSMA-617 phase 3 VISION trial this year, the nuclear medicine community is experiencing an extraordinary optimism for the future of the profession. A series of theranostic radiopharmaceuticals aimed at a variety of molecular targets and diseases are now rapidly entering early clinical trials, representing promise for downstream growth in the field. The ongoing remarkable growth of radiopharmaceutical therapy, research, and development continue to advance both at academic medical centres and in industry. This Research Topic will focus on providing an overview of the rich pipeline of radiopharmaceutical therapy, from understanding the fundamentals of biology to the connection to imaging, and how that leads to radiopharmaceutical approaches to generate cutting-edge clinical and scientific information regarding theranostics.
Nuclear medicine is not just a diagnostic specialty, but part of a team tailoring therapy both for patients with both nonradioactive drugs and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals. The focus on therapy requires a more complicated proof of safety and efficacy—with the need to show how using imaging guides treatment to achieve better therapy outcomes. Accordingly, our goal is to provide a collection of advanced knowledge regarding the use of therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, from the earliest nuclear medicine theranostic (radioiodine) and approved theranostics for metastatic paragangliomas and gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. We will also discuss the therapeutic benefits and safety of current PSMA-based agents for patients with prostate cancer and the scope of using this novel radiotherapy for other non-prostate malignancies. Regarding the next generation of theranostics, we plan to include the latest information on the promise of fibroblast activation protein-targeted agents. Harnessing the immune system for therapeutic benefit has been difficult to predict, so we will provide a collection of recently developed imaging agents using numerous low-molecular weight, antibody and antibody fragments based agents in this context. There is a rapidly evolving work using pretargeting techniques for imaging and even radiotherapy.
Our Research Topic will cover a wide scope of current and emerging approaches to theranostics. In particular, we will not focus on existing clinical standards-of-care such as Lutathera for neuroendocrine tumors, but will instead gear the Research Topic towards emerging applications of existing radiotracers and new radiotracers.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
