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

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

• peptide receptor radionuclide therapy
• PRRT
• ⁶⁸Ga-labeled somatostatin analogue
• ¹⁸F-FDG
• response assessment
• RECIST