Contribution of Radionuclide Theranostics for Managing Intractable Malignancies

Excerpt

Although the survival rate for all cancers is continuing to increase, however there is a substantial percentage of patients that still have not been able to get a long-term survival benefit by not responding to conventional therapies which may incur severe adverse effects and huge medical costs. Heterogeneous biological features of cancers are known to be related to the non-uniform response to the therapies. The heterogeneity of cancer lesions in a single patient is one of the biggest challenges for therapeutic success, and a biopsy of every metastatic lesion is practically impossible in real world clinics [1]. Therefore, pretherapeutic determination of which therapeutic modality would be effective for cancers has significant clinical value by avoiding unnecessary conventional therapeutics and by giving an opportunity for applying other salvage treatments. …