Advances in Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy

Peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) is a very effective treatment modality for advanced neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), representing a teaching model for truly targeted antitumor therapy. With the growing cumulative evidence of PRRT in various treatment settings, we are witnessing increased perception of this modality as a potent treatment option in advanced disease. Although most data derives from retrospective analyses, results from prospective comparative evaluations, such as the NETTER-1 trial, are eagerly awaited and should help to raise PRRT to a higher level of evidence. At the same time, as increased levels of evidence are anticipated by prospective evaluations, further methodological improvements are going on in different ways and aspects of radionuclide therapy, mainly regarding the radiopharmaceuticals, the combination with other radionuclides or cytotoxic drugs, and the route of administration. Although diversity of PRRT increases-not supporting cumulative evidence as opposed to uniform treatment-it is very likely to achieve significant increase of efficacy by these efforts in the near future. As the intraarterial administration of PRRT agents in liver-dominant metastatic disease has the potential to improve outcome, it would have to be shown as to which patients would benefit from this approach, to what extent the benefit would be, and to when it would justify the increased efforts for patients and treating institutes. The approach of combining cytotoxic or radiosensitizing drugs with the PRRT agents seems to trigger a major boost of efficacy in pancreatic NET. The midterm future would show the extent of benefit in terms of long-term outcome and would probably lead to inclusion into clinical routine for this particular NET entity. The translation of somatostatin-receptor antagonists into human application represents another major source of significant improvement in terms of PRRT's benefit-toxicity ratio. Eventually, it may not be completely unlikely to see another radiopharmaceutical being regarded as the PRRT agent of choice in the midterm future.