Well-designed bone-seeking radiolabeled compounds for diagnosis and therapy of bone metastases

Bone-seeking radiopharmaceuticals are frequently used as diagnostic agents in nuclear medicine, because they can detect bone disorders before anatomical changes occur. Furthermore, their effectiveness in the palliation of metastatic bone cancer pain has been demonstrated in the clinical setting. With the aim of developing superior bone-seeking radiopharmaceuticals, many compounds have been designed, prepared, and evaluated. Here, several well-designed bone-seeking compounds used for diagnostic and therapeutic use, having the concept of radiometal complexes conjugated to carrier molecules to bone, are reviewed.