I’m only as good as my last scan
"I'm only as good as my last scan". I once received this comment in response to one of my posts. I thought it was a very pragmatic thing for someone to say and it emphasises the importance of scans in advanced metastatic cases or those early in their diagnosis. A NET patient under surveillance has regular tests at determined intervals but the one that is most likely to spot disease progression, stability or regression is a scan. Markers such as (say) Chromogranin A (CgA) or 5-HIAA are clearly useful (for me) but in an ongoing surveillance scenario, they alone would…
Detectnet™ (64Cu-DOTATATE) – an expansion of the Somatostatin Receptor PET Imaging for Neuroendocrine Cancer
Edit 21st January 2021. The imaging time window of 64Cu-DOTATATE positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) for patients with neuroendocrine neoplasms can be expanded from one hour to three hours post-injection, according to new research published in the January 2021 issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Read more here Edit 4th September 2020. 64Cu-dotatate now named Detectnet™ is approved for use by US FDA. Majority read revealed Detectnet had over 98% accuracy, 100% sensitivity, and over 96% specificity to confirm or exclude presence of disease. Read more here. Edit 14th July 2020. Expanded Access Program via clinical trial now recruiting -…
All you need to know about Somatostatin Receptor PET/CT Scans for Neuroendocrine Tumours
Cancer is a growth industry ...literally! More people are being diagnosed than ever before. Fortunately, more people are surviving than ever before. This is against a backdrop of better awareness, better screening in the big population cancers, and to a certain extent better diagnostic tools, all of which is leading to earlier diagnosis. So how does this affect Neuroendocrine Cancer? According to the latest SEER database figures for Neuroendocrine Cancer, one reason for the 7 fold increase in incidence rates since the 1970s is all of those things above including better diagnostics. This has led to a revised set of…
All you need to know about Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy (PRRT)
Updated 11th March 2026 This update authored by many top names in the PRRT/NET world is extremely useful to bring you up to date in 2026 Lisa Bodei, Gopinath Gnanasegaran, Francesco Giammarile, Marianne Pavel, Valentina Ambrosini, Richard P. Baum, Dieter Hörsch, James R. Howe, Marta Cremonesi, Ghassan El-Haddad, Yuni K. Dewaraja, Thomas A. Hope, David Taieb,Joint EANM, IAEA, and SNMMI practical guidance on somatostatin receptor-targeted radionuclide therapy of neuroendocrine tumours, The EANM Journal, 2026, 100017, ISSN 3051-2921, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eanmj.2026.100017.Click here (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S3051292126000047) Abstract: Somatostatin analogue-based Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy (PRRT) is a molecularly targeted radiopharmaceutical therapy involving the systemic administration of a…
Recent Progress in NET Management – Positive presentation from Jonathan R Strosberg MD
I recently wrote a blog called Neuroendocrine Cancer – Exciting Times Ahead! I wrote that on a day I was feeling particularly positive and at the time, I wanted to share that positivity with you. I genuinely believe there's a lot of great things happening. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot still to be done, particularly in the area of diagnosis and quality of life after being diagnosed. However, this is a really great message from a well-known NET expert. In an interview with OncLive, Jonathan R. Strosberg, MD, associate professor at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida, discussed…
Theranostics for Neuroendocrine Cancer – A Find and Destroy Mission
Theranostics is a joining of the words therapeutics and diagnostics. You may also see it conveyed as 'Theragnostics' and these terms are interchangeable. The basic aim of theranotistics is to find and then destroy the 'bad guys'. With Neuroendocrine Cancer, finding the tumours (the bad guys) can often be a challenge - they can be small and/or difficult to find - they are sometimes expert at camouflage. Moreover, once found, they can then be difficult to treat (destroy), as they can often prove resistant to conventional cancer drugs and many are inoperable due to sheer quantity, spread and positioning. When…
Neuroendocrine Cancer – Exciting Times Ahead!
In the last 12-24 months, there seems to have been announcement after announcement of new and/or upgraded/enhanced diagnostics and treatment types for Neuroendocrine Cancer. Scans, radionuclide therapies, combination therapies, somatostatin analogues, biological therapies, etc. Some of the announcements are just expansions of existing therapies having been approved in new (but significant) regions. Compared to some other cancers, even those which hit the headlines often, we appear to be doing not too badly. However, the pressure needs to stay on, all patients need access to the best diagnostics and treatments for them; and at the requisite time. There's even more in the pipeline and I'm hoping…