Some readers may have noticed that, late last week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a product known as lutetium Lu-177 dotatate or Lutathera for the treatment of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs).
We want to be very clear for readers that while this is a product that employs the radiopharmaceutical activity of Lu-177 to treat a specific (and rare) type of cancer, it is not the same as the types of product that combine the activity of Lu-177 with the targeting capabilities of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) and that are in clinical trials for the treatment of progressive and metastatic forms of prostate cancer. For information about those types of product, please see recent articles by Allen Edel on this site that you can find here and here.
Filed under: Drugs in development, Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Treatment | Tagged: Lu-177, lutetium-177 |
THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK 
The premise for 177Lu-PSMA-based radioligand therapy is demonstration of PSMA expression in the cancer lesions as with PSMA-based PET/CT. I am skeptical for high expression of PSMA for neuroendocrine variants of prostate cancer. Otherwise metastatic, casytration-resistant prostate cancer has a high expression of PSMA and might be a good target for 177Lu-PSMA-67 radioligand therapy.