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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Feb 15, 2016; 8(2): 165-172
Published online Feb 15, 2016. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v8.i2.165
Advancement in treatment and diagnosis of pancreatic cancer with radiopharmaceuticals
Yu-Ping Xu, Min Yang
Yu-Ping Xu, Min Yang, Key Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine, Ministry of Health, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular Nuclear Medicine, Jiangsu Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Wuxi 214063, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Xu YP collected the material, prepared the manuscript and approved the final version; Yang M prepared the manuscript and approved the final version.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation, Nos. 81171399, 51473071, 81101077, 21401084, 81401450 and 81472749; Jiangsu Province Foundation, Nos. BE2014609, BE2012622, BL2012031 and BM2012066; and Wuxi Foundation, No. CSZ0N1320.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors do not have any possible conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Min Yang, Professor, Key Laboratory of Nuclear Medicine, Ministry of Health, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular Nuclear Medicine, Jiangsu Institute of Nuclear Medicine, 20 Qianrong Road, Wuxi 214063, Jiangsu Province, China. yangmin@jsinm.org
Telephone: +86-510-85508862 Fax: +86-510-85513113
Received: April 28, 2015
Peer-review started: May 5, 2015
First decision: July 21, 2015
Revised: November 26, 2015
Accepted: December 17, 2015
Article in press: December 18, 2015
Published online: February 15, 2016
Abstract

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a major health problem. Conventional imaging modalities show limited accuracy for reliable assessment of the tumor. Recent researches suggest that molecular imaging techniques with tracers provide more biologically relevant information and are benefit for the diagnosis of the cancer. In addition, radiopharmaceuticals also play more important roles in treatment of the disease. This review summaries the advancement of the radiolabeled compounds in the theranostics of PC.

Keywords: Pancreatic cancer, Diagnosis, Therapy, Radiopharmaceuticals, Positron emission tomography

Core tip: This review describes the development of radiopharmaceuticals in diagnosis and therapy of pancreatic cancer. We herein discuss the role of the radiolabeled compounds in the preoperative diagnosis, staging, post-therapeutic monitoring, prognosis and the treatment of the disease.