TY  - JOUR
AU  - Nguyen, Nghia
AU  - Min, Yu
AU  - Rivière, Jennifer
AU  - van der Garde, Mark
AU  - Ghosh, Sukhen
AU  - Bartos, Laura M.
AU  - Brendel, Matthias
AU  - Bassermann, Florian
AU  - Azhdarinia, Ali
AU  - Weber, Wolfgang A.
AU  - Götze, Katharina S.
AU  - Kossatz, Susanne
TI  - Limitations of the radiotheranostic concept in neuroendocrine tumors due to lineage-dependent somatostatin receptor expression on hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells
JO  - Theranostics
VL  - 15
IS  - 13
SN  - 1838-7640
CY  - Wyoming, NSW
PB  - Ivyspring
M1  - DKFZ-2025-01195
SP  - 6497 - 6515
PY  - 2025
AB  - Rationale: Radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT) has become an effective treatment option for neuroendocrine tumors (NETs)and castration-resistant prostate cancer and is in clinical development for many indications. One of the major advantages oftheranostic RPT is that the distribution of radiopharmaceuticals in the human body can be imaged, and radiation doses to thepatient’s organs can be calculated. However, accurate dosimetry may be fundamentally limited by microscopic heterogeneity ofradiopharmaceutical distribution. Methods: We developed fluorescent analogs of somatostatin-receptor-subtype 2 (SSTR2)targeting Lutetium-177 labeled radiopharmaceuticals that are clinically used in patients with NETs and studied their uptake byhematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC) using flow cytometry and microscopy. Results: Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs)and multipotent progenitor cells (MPPs) showed high and specific SSTR2-ligand uptake, which was at similar levels as NET cells.Furthermore, they displayed a several-fold higher uptake of SSTR2-antagonists than of SSTR2-agonists. HSPC treatment with a177Lu-labeled antagonist and agonist showed a stronger reduction of HSC proliferation by the antagonist. Due to the scarcity ofHSCs and MPPs, their contribution to total bone marrow uptake of SSTR2-radiopharmaceuticals is negligible in imaging-baseddosimetry. This likely explains why SSTR2-antagonists caused pancytopenia in clinical trials despite safe dosimetry estimates.Conclusion: Target expression heterogeneity can lead to underestimation of radiopharmaceutical toxicity and should beconsidered when designing clinical trials for new radiopharmaceuticals. The implications of our findings go beyond SSTR2-targetedradiopharmaceuticals and suggest more generally that first-in-human studies should not only be guided by radiation dosimetry butshould also include careful escalation of the administered therapeutic activity. Our multimodal ligand design is modular and canbe applied to other peptide or protein-based radiopharmaceuticals to study cellular distribution and potential bone marrowuptake prior to clinical testing.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
DO  - DOI:10.7150/thno.113354
UR  - https://inrepo02.dkfz.de/record/301996
ER  -