Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Dec 12;10(12):1083.
doi: 10.3390/diagnostics10121083.

The Challenge of Evaluating Response to Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy in Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors: The Present and the Future

Virginia Liberini  1   2 , Martin W Huellner  2 , Serena Grimaldi  1 , Monica Finessi  1 , Philippe Thuillier  1   3 , Alfredo Muni  4 , Riccardo E Pellerito  5 , Mauro G Papotti  6   7 , Alessandro Piovesan  8 , Emanuela Arvat  9 , Désirée Deandreis  1
Affiliations
Review

The Challenge of Evaluating Response to Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy in Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors: The Present and the Future

Virginia Liberini et al. Diagnostics (Basel). .

Abstract

The NETTER-1 study has proven peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) to be one of the most effective therapeutic options for metastatic neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), improving progression-free survival and overall survival. However, PRRT response assessment is challenging and no consensus on methods and timing has yet been reached among experts in the field. This issue is owed to the suboptimal sensitivity and specificity of clinical biomarkers, limitations of morphological response criteria in slowly growing tumors and necrotic changes after therapy, a lack of standardized parameters and timing of functional imaging and the heterogeneity of PRRT protocols in the literature. The aim of this article is to review the most relevant current approaches for PRRT efficacy prediction and response assessment criteria in order to provide an overview of suitable tools for safe and efficacious PRRT.

Keywords: 18F-FDG; 68Ga-labeled somatostatin analogue; NET; PRRT; RECIST; SWOG; WHO; neuroendocrine tumors; peptide receptor radionuclide therapy; response assessment.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

M.W.H. is a recipient of grants from GE Healthcare, grants for translational and clinical cardiac and oncological research from the Alfred and Annemarie von Sick Grant legacy, and grants from the Artificial Intelligence in oncological Imaging Network by the University of Zurich. The other authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic representation of the performed literature search and the review strategy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Modlin I.M., Oberg K., Chung D.C., Jensen R.T., de Herder W.W., Thakker R.V., Caplin M., Delle Fave G., Kaltsas G.A., Krenning E.P., et al. Gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours. Lancet Oncol. 2008;9:61–72. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(07)70410-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Nagtegaal I.D., Odze R.D., Klimstra D., Paradis V., Rugge M., Schirmacher P., Washington K.M., Carneiro F., Cree I.A. The 2019 WHO classification of tumours of the digestive system. Histopathology. 2020;76:182–188. doi: 10.1111/his.13975. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Uccella S., La Rosa S., Volante M., Papotti M. Immunohistochemical Biomarkers of Gastrointestinal, Pancreatic, Pulmonary, and Thymic Neuroendocrine Neoplasms. Endocr. Pathol. 2018;29:150–168. doi: 10.1007/s12022-018-9522-y. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Simbolo M., Barbi S., Fassan M., Mafficini A., Ali G., Vicentini C., Sperandio N., Corbo V., Rusev B., Mastracci L., et al. Gene Expression Profiling of Lung Atypical Carcinoids and Large Cell Neuroendocrine Carcinomas Identifies Three Transcriptomic Subtypes with Specific Genomic Alterations. J. Thorac. Oncol. 2019;14:1651–1661. doi: 10.1016/j.jtho.2019.05.003. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Scarpa A., Chang D.K., Nones K., Corbo V., Patch A.M., Bailey P., Lawlor R.T., Johns A.L., Miller D.K., Mafficini A., et al. Whole-genome landscape of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours. Nature. 2017;543:65–71. doi: 10.1038/nature21063. - DOI - PubMed