Use of polymeric microparticles with radiomarked etoposide with metastable 99 technetium for the differential diagnosis of lung cancer

The diagnosis of lung cancer mostly occurs when the cancer is already in an advanced stage. In this situation, there are few options for the treatment and most of them have few chances of success. In this study, we developed and tested etoposide microparticles as a diagnostic agent for imaging lung cancer at early stages of development. We tested etoposide microparticles labeled with technetium ^99m in inducted mice. The results demonstrated that over 10% of the total dose used was uptake by the tumor site. Also, the results showed that the microparticles had a good renal clearance and low uptake by liver and spleen. The data suggest that these micro- radiopharmaceuticals may be used for lung cancer imaging exam, especially single-photo emission computed tomography (SPECT). (author)