REVIEW  FOCUS ON 64CU: RADIOPHARMACEUTICALS AND CLINICAL APPLICATIONS Free access

The Quarterly Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2020 December;64(4):364-70

DOI: 10.23736/S1824-4785.20.03311-7

Copyright © 2020 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Peptide and pseudo-peptide

Siroos MIRZAEI ¹ ✉, Rainer W. LIPP ²

¹ Department of Nuclear Medicine with PET-Center, Wilhelminenspital, Vienna, Austria; ² Division of Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

In recent years, the introduction of theranostic twins for specific diagnosis and treatment in patients with neuroendocrine tumors became a nuclear medicine success story. ⁶⁴Cu/¹⁸F labeled prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) for molecular imaging with PET-CT and peptide radioligand therapy with ¹⁷⁷Lu labeled PSMA inhibitors will favorably become the next theranostic twins in nuclear medicine history. ⁶⁸Ga/ ⁶⁴Cu/¹⁸F PSMA PET/CT detects metastatic prostate cancer with high diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. In addition, it can be used to select patients for radioligand therapy and evaluate therapy response. ⁶⁴Cu-labeled radiopharmaceuticals such as ⁶⁴Cu-PSMA, and ⁶⁴Cu-somatostatin analogs are promising imaging tools in the assessment of primary disease and also in the detection of disease recurrence and to evaluate therapy response. The long half-life of ⁶⁴Cu allows the distribution of the tracer to PET centers as a satellite concept, who otherwise has no access to ⁶⁸Ga generators.

KEY WORDS: Positron emission tomography computed tomography; Copper-64; Radiopharmaceuticals