Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has devastated the healthcare systems and economies of over 200 countries in just a few months. The etiological agent of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, is a highly contagious virus that can be transmitted by asymptomatic and symptomatic carriers alike. While in vitro testing techniques have allowed for population-wide screening, prognostic tools are required to assess the disease severity and therapeutic response, contributing to improve the patient clinical outcomes. Moreover, no specific antiviral against COVID-19 exists at the time of publication, severely limiting treatment against the infection. Hence, there is an urgent clinical need for innovative therapeutic strategies that may contribute to manage the COVID-19 outbreak and prevent future pandemics. Herein, we critically examine recent diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic advancements for COVID-19 in the field of radiopharmaceuticals. First, we summarize the gold standard techniques used to diagnose COVID-19, including in vitro assays and imaging techniques, and then discuss how radionuclide-based nuclear imaging provides complementary information for prognosis and treatment management of infected patients. Second, we introduce new emerging types of radiotherapies that employ radioimmunoconjugates, which have shown selective cytotoxic response in oncological studies, and critically analyze how these compounds could be used as therapeutic agents against SARS-CoV-2. Finally, this Perspective further discusses the emerging applications of radionuclides to study the behavior of pulmonary SARS-CoV-2 aerosol particles.
Highlights
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has devastated the healthcare systems and economies of over 200 countries in just a few months
Current efforts to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies against SARS-CoV-2 will likely yield improved capabilities for the current and future outbreaks. In this Perspective, we summarize the recent advances in the field of radiopharmaceuticals for COVID-19 diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy and offer prospects for emerging opportunities
We initially describe the state of the art in the diagnosis of COVID-19 and analyze how imaging techniques based on radiotracers can provide clinically relevant information for patient prognosis and treatment management
Summary
In December of 2019, a pulmonary disease called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) first emerged in the city of Wuhan, China and rapidly spread to the rest of the world.[1,2] The etiological agent of COVID-19 is SARS-CoV-2, a new type of coronavirus that showed highly efficient transmission between humans.[1,3] Symptomatic patients diagnosed with COVID-19 often displayed fever, respiratory complications, pneumonia, and dyspnea.[4]. Based on the identification of viral nucleotides, both SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV were likely zoonotically transmitted to humans by bats.[17] The several recorded spillovers of coronaviruses from animals to humans as well as the detection of multiple coronaviruses in bats may forecast new epidemics in the future.[18] current efforts to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies against SARS-CoV-2 will likely yield improved capabilities for the current and future outbreaks In this Perspective, we summarize the recent advances in the field of radiopharmaceuticals for COVID-19 diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy and offer prospects for emerging opportunities. A new use for radionuclides to model the behavior of COVID-19 aerosol particles is discussed
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