Bone radionuclide therapy and increased survival with radium-223 is the way to go for nuclear medicine: the offer that oncologists cannot refuse

Excerpt

In July 2013 The New England Journal of Medicine published a randomised controlled study demonstrating a survival benefit for castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) patients with symptomatic bone metastases and no known visceral metastatic disease treated with radium-223 [1]. This study contributed to a change in paradigm in the treatment of CRPC patients, in whom until then radionuclide therapy had only a minor role. Nowadays, radium-223 is considered as one of the options in CRPC together with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The breakthrough of radium-223 into the clinical arena is an example of how the Nuclear Medicine community should address the issue of getting to be considered a key player in oncology: providing high quality evidence and, if possible, demonstrating a survival benefit of our diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. …