Though production of radioactive isotopes or radioisotopes
for medical use date back to the World War II era Manhattan Project, does
lutetium-177 represent the latest advances in radioisotope cancer treatment?
By: Ringo Bones
The radioisotopes – which more than 150 are now have current
medical use are perhaps the most notable byproduct of humanity’s atomic energy
program that dates back to the latter years of World War II. Many isotopes
discovered afterwards had been tested and used to apply radiation for cancer
treatment both externally and internally. The great concentrated of the
radioactivity emitted by these substances is evident by the fact that their
ability to penetrate body tissue is approximately the same as that of the
radiation from a 2-million-volt X-ray machine. But is there anything new that
can still be discovered from the somewhat esoteric field of radioisotope cancer
therapy?
Thanks to small research nuclear reactors that are found in most
Ivy League college’s nuclear physics labs that can be operated for around 200
US dollars an hour, many previously unknown radioactive isotopes can now be
economically produced to be studied for their potential cancer therapy use. The
latest of which is lutetium-177, which after extensive testing was found out to
only target tumors while ignoring healthy cells – especially neuro-endocrine
tumors which can be almost impossible to remove by conventional surgery alone.
Like previous radioactive isotopes used for cancer
treatment, lutetium-177 is usually delivered intravenously to the body via
saline solution from its shielded container. Still the lutetium-177 infusion
dose is still a relatively rare medical procedure and there are still doctors
and hospitals out there that are still unfamiliar with using lutetium-177 as a
radioisotope for cancer treatment. Lutetium-177 is also notable for its ability
to penetrate a typical cancer cell’s defenses and its side effects are less
extreme in comparison to more aggressive forms of chemotherapy. And
lutetium-177 is even better than radioisotope phosphorous-32 in differentiating
brain tumors from normal brain tissue, thus sparking its interest as the latest
procedure in radioisotope cancer therapy.
