A pilot study of five patients demonstrated that an antagonist agent, indium-111 (In-111) DOTA-BASS, outperformed the agonist Octreoscan, which is widely used to image neuroendocrine tumors with somatostatin receptors.
The research is published in the September issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine (Vol. 52:9, pp. 1412-1417).
The prototype agent In-111 DOTA-BASS detected 25 of 28 metastatic neuroendocrine tumors (89%) in the five patients, compared with Octreoscan, which detected only 17%.
Dr. Jean Rivier, professor in the Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology at the Salk Institute, said the findings are the first proof in humans that labeled peptide antagonists can effectively image tumors. Additional research suggests that oncologists could eventually use a different radioactive metal to effectively kill the tumors, according to Rivier.
In-111 DOTA-BASS has been licensed to a pharmaceutical company for clinical trial development.
The study was funded in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
