Imaging of Nonprostate Cancers Using PSMA-Targeted Radiotracers: Rationale, Current State of the Field, and a Call to Arms

Abstract

Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is a type II transmembrane glycoprotein that is highly overexpressed on prostate cancer epithelial cells and for which there is a growing body of literature examining the role of small-molecule and antibody radiotracers targeted against this protein for prostate cancer detection and therapy. Despite its name, PSMA is also expressed, to varying degrees, in the neovasculature of a wide variety of nonprostate cancers; indeed, the pathology literature is replete with promising immunohistochemistry findings. Several groups have begun to correlate those pathology-level results with in vivo imaging and therapy in nonprostate cancers using the same PSMA-targeted agents that have been so successful in prostate cancer. The potential to leverage radiotracers targeted to PSMA beyond prostate cancer is a promising approach for many cancers, and PSMA-targeted agents may be able to supplement or fill gaps left by other agents. However, to date, most of the reported findings with PSMA-targeted radiotracers in nonprostate malignancies have been in case reports and small case series, and the field must adopt a more thorough approach to the design and execution of larger prospective trials to realize the potential of these promising agents outside prostate cancer.

Keywords: PET; PSMA; breast cancer; lung cancer; renal cell carcinoma.