Abstract
Breast cancer remains the most frequent cancer in women with different patterns of disease progression and response to treatments. The identification of specific biomarkers for different breast cancer subtypes has allowed the development of novel targeting agents for imaging and therapy. To date, patient management depends on immunohistochemistry analysis of receptor status on bioptic samples. This approach is too invasive, and in some cases, not entirely representative of the disease. Nuclear imaging using receptor tracers may provide whole-body information and detect any changes of receptor expression during disease progression. Therefore, imaging is useful to guide clinicians to select the best treatments for each patient and to evaluate early response thus reducing unnecessary therapies. In this review, we focused on the development of novel tracers that are ongoing in preclinical and/or clinical studies as promising tools to lead treatment decisions for breast cancer management.
Highlights
Breast cancer is a malignant disease with the highest incidence in women worldwide [1]
Many studies discussed in this review evaluated the same molecule both as an imaging agent of receptor patterning in whole-body, taking into account the inter- and intra-variability of lesions
The antibodies currently evaluated in pre-clinical stages or in small groups of patients, further studies are still used in clinical trials for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) overexpressing tumors, trastuzumab and pertuzumab, labeled with needed to translate them for clinical use
Summary
Breast cancer is a malignant disease with the highest incidence in women worldwide [1]. The development of specific molecules, which target this receptor such as trastuzumab and pertuzumab or the tyrosine kinase inhibitor lapatinib, has significantly improved the outcome in HER2-positive breast cancer patients [3] Both tumor heterogeneity and the occurrence of resistance to treatments may fundamentally affect receptor status and response to therapy. The integration of molecular imaging into breast cancer daily management could improve the standard of care, providing additional information on the heterogeneity of tumor lesions and facilitating early diagnosis, accurate staging, and personalized treatment planning It could improve the management of metastatic breast carcinoma where receptor status can change during disease course and repeat biopsies may be too invasive for the patients [4]. In this table are reported tracers currently used only in preclinical studies and tracers already translated in clinical research
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