Evolution of radiopharmaceuticals for diagnosis and therapy

Abstract

Diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals should reflect in vivo biochemistry. Therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals should kill tumor cells while sparing healthy cells. As the understanding of a biological process increases, synthetic chemists must be ever poised to improve the design of new radiotracers to reflect the in vivo scenario in an accurate and precise fashion. However, it is somewhat ironic that, due to genetic variability, there is an inverse relationship between the specificity of the radiotracer and the number of individuals who will eventually be helped by these discoveries. Regardless of the beauty of the science that underpins radiopharmaceutical development, the availability of financial resources will direct the overall progress in the field. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.