CA22118 - Radionuclide theragnostics for personalised medicine (RATIONALE)

Image guided treatments with radiotherapeutics have so far been restricted to qualitative evaluation of PET imaging to assess the suitability of patients for a course of treatment. A ‘next generation’ approach to theragnostics will enable personalised dosimetry-based treatment planning based on the image data acquired (‘molecular radiotherapy’). This will entail multimodality imaging, including quantitative PET/CT and SPECT/CT along with MRI for pre-therapy treatment planning and for staging and monitoring response, the standardisation of data acquisition and processing to facilitate multi-centre data collation, and bio-kinetic modelling to extract the maximum information from data and to inform further treatments.

Realisation of the potential offered by a theragnostic approach to treatment requires multi-centre and multi-national collaboration, as a full range of expertise is seldom available in any one centre. The limited number of patients treated, in comparison with conventional chemotherapy and external beam radiotherapy, also warrants support for the development of multi-disciplinary networks that would promote fast-tracking novel theragnostic procedures into clinical practice.

This COST Action will promote the full potential of a theragnostic approach to the treatment of cancer with
radiotherapeutics by:

• fostering collaborative research and training between experts and clinical centres to facilitate knowledge transfer.
• supporting the optimisation and standardisation of data acquisition to allow data pooling.
• bridging gaps between stakeholders and supporting communication between cross-speciality experts
• promoting multi-disciplinary theragnostic approaches to the development of personalised treatments.