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
. 2025 Jul 11;42(8):322.
doi: 10.1007/s12032-025-02825-y.

The role of radiotheranostics in personalized treatment for breast cancer

Dheeraj Sharma  1 , Shriyansh Srivastava  2 , Naga Rani Kagithala  1 , Kalpana Pravin Rahate  1 , Sathvik Belagodu Sridhar  3
Affiliations
Review

The role of radiotheranostics in personalized treatment for breast cancer

Dheeraj Sharma et al. Med Oncol. .

Abstract

Radiotheranostics merges diagnostic imaging and targeted radionuclide therapy to allow treatment of breast cancer to be tailored individually. It employs radiopharmaceuticals and molecular imaging modalities such as PET and SPECT for accurate characterization and treatment of the tumor. The review presents the mechanisms, clinical uses, and future potential of radiotheranostics in breast cancer. The review focuses on the potential of nuclear medicine in driving personalized treatment through biomarker-guided strategies. We discussed recent literature on well-established biomarkers like HER2, ER, and PR as well as novel targets like TROP-2. Theranostic agents like ^177Lu-DOTA-trastuzumab and novel innovations with alpha-emitters as well as dual-targeting nanoparticles are noted. Radiotheranostic agents have enhanced results, most importantly, in HER2-positive patients with metastatic or advanced breast cancer. Therapeutic promise also is brought by recent advances to hard-to-treat subtypes, such as triple-negative breast cancer. While radiotheranostics holds great promise, its wider use in the clinic is hampered by factors like heterogeneity of biomarkers, dosimetry accuracy, and regulatory limitations. Research continues to affirm its revolutionary role in the administration of tailor-made treatment regimens to breast cancer.

Keywords: Biomarkers; Breast cancer; HER2; Nuclear medicine; PET; Radionuclide therapy; Radiotheranostics; SPECT.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

References

    1. Jayaswal N, et al. Precision arrows: navigating breast cancer with nanotechnology siRNA. Int J Pharm. 2024;662: 124403.
    1. Arnold M, et al. Current and future burden of breast cancer: global statistics for 2020 and 2040. The Breast. 2022;66:15–23.
    1. Yu TJ, et al. Bulk and single-cell transcriptome profiling reveal the metabolic heterogeneity in human breast cancers. Mol Ther. 2021;29:2350–65.
    1. Hindié E, et al. The sentinel node procedure in breast cancer: nuclear medicine as the starting point. J Nucl Med. 2011;52:405–14.
    1. Pantel AR, Mankoff DA. Molecular imaging to guide systemic cancer therapy: illustrative examples of PET imaging cancer biomarkers. Cancer Lett. 2017;387:25–31.

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources