Treating patients with Theranostics

Who may benefit?

Theranostics can be used to treat cancers that have spread (metastasised), or where cancer is advanced and/or hasn’t responded to other treatments.

While in the future theranostics may be used for different cancers, to date most experience and success has been in metastatic prostate cancer and neuroendocrine tumours.

Metastatic prostate cancer

How it works

Theranostics is a personalised approach to treating cancer, using both diagnosis and therapy tools as part of the treatment.

Theranostics uses PET scan imaging (a special type of scan) to see if specific targets, known as tumour receptors, are present on tumour cells. If these targets are present and visible on the scan, a radioactive drug is used to treat the tumours. The drug is given as an injection and selectively targets the tumour cells while avoiding healthy areas. Most of the radioactive drug that doesn’t reach the target is quickly passed out of the body.

• A Phase 2 study (n=30) of ¹⁷⁷Lu-PSMA-617 showed ‘high response rates, low toxicity effects, and a reduction in pain in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who have progressed after conventional treatments’¹.
• In Phase 3 study, NETTER–1*, ’¹⁷⁷Lu-Dotatate resulted in markedly longer progression-free survival than high-dose octreotide LAR and was associated with limited acute toxic effects in a population of patients who had progressive neuroendocrine tumours that originated in the midgut’².

Available services

• ¹⁷⁷Lutetium PSMA – for Metastatic or Treatment Resistant Prostate Cancer
• ¹⁷⁷Lutetium Octreotate – for somatostatin receptor – positive tumours (available from Autumn 2019)

Easy access

Cancer treatment at GenesisCare may be covered by insurance. We also offer self-pay options for Theranostics.