ABSTRACT

The term of theranostic refers to the combination of therapy and diagnostic imaging. In practise, this concept has dated back about 50 years ago, however, the most successful example of theranostic approaches has emerged with the use of peptide receptor scintigraphy and peptide receptor radionuclide therapy in neuroendocrine tumours (NET). The development of these modalities by means of radiolabeling of somatostatin analogues with several radionuclides has been a pioneer in patient management and the beginning of new era in establishment of a theranostic principle into other oncologic indications. As being for other tumours, the theranostic approach recently holds a very important place in the diagnosis and treatment of NETs. Thoracic NETs (20%) are the second most frequent NET after gastrointestinal system NETs (70%). Although there is no consensus about diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy of NETs, in this review, we discuss the methods of diagnosis and therapy as well as current theranostic approaches.