The Reading Room Podcast: A Closer Look at New Research on 177Lu-Edotreotide for Treating GEP-NETs

For Amir Iravani, MD, FRACP, new dosimetry data from the COMPETE trial — which evaluated the radiotherapeutic agent ¹⁷⁷Lu-edotreotide for gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs) — signal the potential for more personalized targeted treatment in this patient population.

In a recent Reading Room podcast, Dr. Iravani discussed pertinent findings from the subanalysis of the COMPETE trial that he presented at the recent American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) conference.

For the study, Dr. Iravani and his colleagues reviewed multiple whole-body planar imaging obtained up to 96 hours post-dose and abdominal SPECT imaging obtained 24 hours after administration of each of the four cycles of treatment with ¹⁷⁷Lu-edotreotide. The researchers also evaluated ¹⁷⁷Lu-edotreotide by reviewing the radiotherapeutic agent’s dosimetry data for healthy organs in 17 patients and tumor dosimetry in nine patients.

Across four treatment cycles of ¹⁷⁷Lu-edotreotide, the study authors found that the median kidney absorbed dose coefficients (ADC) remained relatively consistent (ranging from 0.44 to 0.47 Gy/GBq) with only a 14 percent intra-patient variability.

“If we do dosimetry at cycle one, we may not necessarily need to do that comprehensive dosimetry to kind of project what is going to be the cumulative absorbed dose within each patient after receiving all four cycles of treatment. Although all patients may need to have the dosimetry (as the) absorbed dose might be different, within each patient, we could basically project and predict what would be the cumulative dose to the kidney,” pointed out Dr. Iravani, an associate professor and vice chair of clinical research and theranostics within the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Theranostics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

While emphasizing the need for further research, Dr, Iravani said this dosimetry data suggests the potential of ¹⁷⁷Lu-edotreotide to enable individualized treatment of GEP-NETs.

“The future direction would be personalizing this treatment and modifying and modulating the treatment based on the absorption dose to the normal organs and the tumors in the future with the hope that that approach would even improve upon what has been achieved from this agent in this trial,” suggested Dr. Iravani.

For more insights from Dr. Iravani, listen below or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

(Editor’s note: This podcast was originally published as a video interview at the following link: https://www.diagnosticimaging.com/view/new-dosimetry-data-177lu-edotreotide-gep-net-treatment .)