Although 177Lu-DOTA-TATE was recently approved in Europe for the treatment of certain neuroendocrine tumors, continued development and optimization has been ongoing to further improve the therapeutic efficacy of somatostatin receptor 2 targeted peptide receptor radionuclide therapy, as well as reducing the renal toxicity. In this work, the use of an Evans blue analog for "albumin hitchhiking" resulted in significant improvement in both the imaging performance and therapeutic efficacy of radiolabeled octreotate, as well as reducing the toxicity since much less radioactivity was used for therapy. Upon clinical translation, such "albumin hitchhiking" could make significant impact in the near future for cancer patient management.
Keywords: cancer; octreotate (TATE); peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT); positron emission tomography (PET); precision medicine; somatostatin receptor 2 (SSTR2); theranostics.