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Review
. 2021 Mar 15;109(4):905-912.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2020.12.002. Epub 2020 Dec 10.

Overcoming Barriers to Radiopharmaceutical Therapy (RPT): An Overview From the NRG-NCI Working Group on Dosimetry of Radiopharmaceutical Therapy

Chaitanya Divgi  1 , Jorge A Carrasquillo  2 , Ruby Meredith  3 , Youngho Seo  4 , Eric C Frey  5 , Wesley E Bolch  6 , Brian E Zimmerman  7 , Gamal Akabani  8 , Daniel A Jacobson  9 , Ben Brown  10 , Sandra M Davern  9 , Robert F Hobbs  11 , John Humm  12 , Eduardo G Moros  13 , David Morse  14 , Rao Papineni  15 , Pat Zanzonico  12 , Stanley H Benedict  16 , George Sgouros  17
Affiliations
Review

Overcoming Barriers to Radiopharmaceutical Therapy (RPT): An Overview From the NRG-NCI Working Group on Dosimetry of Radiopharmaceutical Therapy

Chaitanya Divgi et al. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. .

Abstract

Radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT) continues to demonstrate tremendous potential in improving the therapeutic gains in radiation therapy by specifically delivering radiation to tumors that can be well assessed in terms of dosimetry and imaging. Dosimetry in external beam radiation therapy is standard practice. This is not the case, however, in RPT. This NRG (acronym formed from the first letter of the 3 original groups: National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project, the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, and the Gynecologic Oncology Group)-National Cancer Institute Working Group review describes some of the challenges to improving RPT. The main priorities for advancing the field include (1) developing and adopting best practice guidelines for incorporating patient-specific dosimetry for RPT that can be used at both large clinics with substantial resources and more modest clinics that have limited resources, (2) establishing and improving strategies for introducing new radiopharmaceuticals for clinical investigation, (3) developing approaches to address the radiophobia that is associated with the administration of radioactivity for cancer therapy, and (4) solving the financial and logistical issues of expertise and training in the developing field of RPT.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Summary of challenges associated with implementation of radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT) and a treatment-planning approach to its delivery.
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References

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