Cancer drug development with the help of radiopharmaceuticals: academic experience.

Overview

In the last decade radiotracers have been gradually growing in importance as aids for the development of new drugs. This development has been most pronounced for Psychiatric and Neurologic drugs, but has more recently been adapted to the development of drugs against cancer. In this mini-review, we describe how advances in molecular imaging of cancer are likely to lead to advances in development and improved application of anti-cancer drugs. We will focus on 4 aspects of use of radiotracers: 1) for treatment response assessment; 2) for the study of kinetics and pharmacology of novel drugs, including bioavailability and local tumor concentration; 3) the identification of the biologic target at the cellular level; 4) the combination of nanocarriers and radioisotopes to improve biodistribution.