Terbium “Sisters”: More Than just a “Swiss Army Knife”

Abstract

AbstractThe concept of radiotheragnotics is employed at many nuclear medicine entities worldwide, where 68Ga and 177Lu are the most commonly used radiometals for PET imaging and radionuclide therapy, respectively.The application of radionuclides of the same element (i.e., radioisotopes) would enable the preparation of chemically identical radiopharmaceuticals for both imaging and therapy. At the Paul Scherrer Institute, the realization of this concept has been a major research focus over the last decade. Among several interesting metals, terbium is of particular relevance. It comprises four radioisotopes suitable for nuclear medicine purposes, including imaging using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT; terbium-155) and positron emission tomography (PET; terbium-152), respectively, as well as targeted radionuclide therapy using α-particles (terbium-149) and β¯-particles (terbium-161).This chapter presents the birth of the terbium “sisters” at PSI and briefly summarizes the most important achievements obtained with each of the four sisters. Future perspectives and challenges with regard to clinical translation of the “terbium sister concept” are presented and discussed.