Dr. Hope on Imaging for Neuroendocrine Tumors

Thomas Hope, MD, assistant professor, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses imaging for patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs).

Imaging of NETs is difficult because they grow slowly over time and conventional PET imaging, using glucose or FDG-PET scan, has low-detection sensitivity, explains Hope.

There have recently been PET scans that use somatostatin receptor-targeted agents, most notably being DOTATOC and DOTATATE PET imaging, which are labeled with Gallium-68. These imaging modalities have demonstrated much higher sensitivity for the detection and characterization of NETs, states Hope.