Journal Browser

► Journal Browser

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Salvatore Annunziata

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Unità di Medicina Nucleare, TracerGLab, Dipartimento Diagnostica per Immagini, Radioterapia Oncologica ed Ematologia, Fondazione Policlinico A. Gemelli IRCCS, 00168 Roma, Italy
Interests: nuclear medicine; radiopharmaceuticals; PET; radiomics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Therapy with radiopharmaceuticals is a field of great relevance in nuclear medicine in different clinical contexts, such as ¹³¹I for thyroid diseases and medullary neuroendocrine tumors, ⁹⁰Y radioembolizazion in liver cancer, and ²²³Ra for bone metastases. In recent years, new specific ligands such as PSMA, Pentixafor, FAPI, and antibodies labeled with effective diagnostic radioisotopes (e.g., ⁶⁸Ga, ¹⁸F, ⁶⁴Cu) and therapeutic radioisotopes (e.g., ¹⁷⁷Lu, ²²⁵Ac, ⁶⁷Cu) have been developed and studied. The combined diagnostic and therapeutic power of these new radiopharmaceuticals has opened a new era of so-called theragnostics, exploiting a great scientific, clinical, and commercial interest.

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to this Special Issue called The Theragnostics Era: New Radiopharmaceuticals for Diagnostics and Therapy. This Special Issue aims to collect the most interesting papers on different theragnostic applications, including but not limited to oncology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, and immunology.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Pre-clinical or clinical studies, experimental or observational studies, and senior or young investigators will be considered for publication.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Salvatore Annunziata
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

nuclear medicine
therapy
diagnostics
theranostics
theragnostics
PET
imaging
radiotherapy
radioligand
radiopharmaceuticals

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers

Review

Jump to: Other

23 pages, 1481 KiB

Open AccessReview

PSMA Radioligand Uptake as a Biomarker of Neoangiogenesis in Solid Tumours: Diagnostic or Theragnostic Factor?

by Alessio Rizzo, Sara Dall’Armellina, Daniele Antonio Pizzuto, Germano Perotti, Luca Zagaria, Valerio Lanni, Giorgio Treglia, Manuela Racca and Salvatore Annunziata

Cancers 2022, 14(16), 4039; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14164039 - 21 Aug 2022

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 2809

Abstract

Due to its overexpression on the surface of prostate cancer cells, prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is a relatively novel effective target for molecular imaging and radioligand therapy (RLT) in prostate cancer. Recent studies reported that PSMA is expressed in the neovasculature of various types of cancer and regulates tumour cell invasion as well as tumour angiogenesis. Several authors explored the role of diagnostic and therapeutic PSMA radioligands in various malignancies. In this narrative review, we describe the current status of the literature on PSMA radioligands’ application in solid tumours other than prostate cancer to explore their potential role as diagnostic or therapeutic agents, with particular regard to the relevance of PSMA radioligand uptake as neoangiogenetic biomarker. Hence, a comprehensive review of the literature was performed to find relevant articles on the applications of PSMA radioligands in non-prostate solid tumours. Data on the general, methodological and clinical aspects of all included studies were collected. Forty full-text papers were selected for final review, 8 of which explored PSMA radioligand PET/CT performances in gliomas, 3 in salivary gland malignancies, 6 in thyroid cancer, 2 in breast cancer, 16 in renal cell carcinoma and 5 in hepatocellular carcinoma. In the included studies, PSMA radioligand PET showed promising performance in patients with non-prostate solid tumours. Further studies are needed to better define its potential role in oncological patients management, especially in those undergoing antineoangiogenic therapies, and to assess the efficacy of PSMA-RLT in this clinical context. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Theragnostics Era: New Radiopharmaceuticals for Diagnostics and Therapy)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Other

Jump to: Review

13 pages, 853 KiB

Open AccessSystematic Review

Clinical Applications of Immuno-PET in Lymphoma: A Systematic Review

by Elizabeth Katherine Anna Triumbari, David Morland, Riccardo Laudicella, Matteo Bauckneht, Domenico Albano and Salvatore Annunziata

Cancers 2022, 14(14), 3488; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14143488 - 18 Jul 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2087

Abstract

Objective: Immuno-positron emission tomography (iPET) combines the sensitivity of the PET imaging technique and the targeting specificity of radio-labelled monoclonal antibodies (mAb). Its first clinical applications in humans were described in the late 1990s, and several pathologies have benefitted from this molecular imaging modality since then. Our scope was to assess current clinical applications of immuno-PET in patients with lymphoma. Therefore, a systematic review of the published literature was performed. Methods: PubMed/Medline and Scopus databases were independently searched by two nuclear medicine physicians, to identify studies describing the clinical use of immuno-PET in patients with lymphoma. Methodological quality of the included articles was assessed by using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies criteria. The studies were then analyzed concerning the molecular target of interest. Results: The initial search yielded 1407 articles. After elimination of duplicates, 1339 titles/abstracts were evaluated. Only two articles were found to comply with the inclusion criteria and two more were found during the cross-reference check. Among the four included articles, three described the use of ⁸⁹Zr-labelled antibodies targeting CD20+ relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphomas and one concerned the use of ⁶⁸Ga-labelled mAb targeting CXCR4 in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphomas. Conclusions: Very limited literature data are currently available on the clinical use of iPET in patients with lymphoma. This technique is encountering obstacles in its wider use, possibly because of the need of specific facilities, unfavorable dosimetry, and unclear correlation of immuno-tracer biodistribution with patients’ clinical and tumors’ molecular characteristics. However, iPET may represent a useful tool to non-invasively visualize the heterogenous individual immunological environment, thus potentially guiding treatment-planning in lymphoma patients, and hence deserves further exploitation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Theragnostics Era: New Radiopharmaceuticals for Diagnostics and Therapy)

► Show Figures