Update on Management of Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma: Focus on Nuclear Medicine

Abstract

Currently, there is a discrepancy among the available guidelines on the usefulness of nuclear medicine techniques in medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) diagnosis and treatment. Aim of this review is to provide an update on diagnostic and therapeutic nuclear medicine techniques in this setting. Evidence-based data clearly demonstrates the usefulness of PET/CT with different radiopharmaceuticals in recurrent MTC (in particular when serum calcitonin is higher than 150 pg/mL or calcitonin doubling time is shortened) and 18F-FDOPA should be the preferred PET radiopharmaceutical. If 18F-FDOPA PET/CT is negative or unavailable, 18F-FDG PET/CT or 68Ga-DOTA-peptides PET/CT could be performed for MTC restaging. There is currently insufficient evidence to recommend PET/CT with several radiopharmaceuticals for MTC staging. Clinical experience on PET/MRI with different radiopharmaceuticals in MTC is still limited. Several investigational nuclear medicine therapeutic options are currently under evaluation in metastatic MTC. More data are needed to evaluate the efficacy, toxicity, and role of these therapeutic options in the management of MTC patients.