PET-based molecular imaging in personalized oncology for the assessment of therapeutic outcome: current and future applications

Date: 

Friday, January 20, 2017, 11:00am to 12:00pm

Location: 

Robbins Room, Founders Building, Second Floor. Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston MA 02114

RCC is pleased to announce this talk chaired by RCC Fellow Giorgos Kontaxakis, featuring Prof. Antonia Dimitrakopoulou-Strauss, MD, Professor of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Heidelberg and Deputy Head of the Clinical Cooperation Unit - Nuclear Medicine at the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany

Molecular imaging techniques allow a better staging as well as an individualization and optimization  of therapy in oncological patients. The availability of new hybrid scanners, like PET-CTand PET-MRI have revolutionized both diagnosis and therapy management and are therefore  a unique tool for personalized cancer treatment. Identification of non-responders early in thecourse of treatment, the choice of the appropriate therapeutic protocol as well as optimal treatment duration are some aspects which can be improved by the use of molecular imagingtechniques and can help to avoid side effects and save costs for the health system. Furthermore, therapies with new targeted drugs, like tyrosine kinase inhibitors or immune checkpointinhibitors require also a tight monitoring for assessment of a therapeutic result and a fast change to another protocol in case of progress. Standardization of response criteria is anotherimportant aspect and a prerequisite  for  a  more routine application of molecular imaging for therapy guidance. Furthermore, the development of new  tumor-specific tracers will enable amore accurate assessment of a therapeutic result. Numerous peptides targeting  receptor- active tumors are in development with a high potential in a large spectrum of tumors fortheranostic approaches, like in neuroendocrine tumors and in prostate cancer

Speaker: Prof. Antonia Dimitrakopoulou-Strauss, MD, Professor of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Heidelberg and Deputy Head of the Clinical Cooperation Unit - Nuclear Medicine at the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany

Chair: Giorgos Kontaxakis, Rcc Fellow

Sponsor: RCC

 

See also: RCCHU, Cambridge