Application of radioisotopes in health care: proven strategies and recent advances

Though the words radioactivity, nuclear radiations etc. bring back the horrific memories of nuclear attacks during world war-Il, rarely do we recognize the beneficial effects of radiations, especially in health care sector, such as in cancer management. Cancer is going to be a 21st century challenge and an effective solution for clinical management of cancer is the need of the hour. Development of target specific molecular vehicles suitable for carrying the radioisotopes to achieve either diagnosis or therapy is a significant step in this direction. The talk covers general strategies such as peptide receptor radionuclidic therapy (PRRT) and recent advances towards truly personalizing nuclear medicine for clinical management of cancer. (author)