Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, USA
*Correspondence to: Suresh C. Srivastava, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Medical Department, Building 801, P.O. Box 5000, Upton, 11973-5000, New York – USA, Tel: 631-344-4459 Fax: 631-344-5962, E-mail: suresh@bnl.gov
Bone-seeking therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals are utilized on the basis of the radionuclide‘s particulate emissions (primarily low to intermediate energy electron emission). The requirements therefore are different from those of bone imaging agents that consist mainly of short-lived single photon emitters. Lately, the therapeutic bone-seeking radiopharmaceuticals have attained increasing importance due to their potential role in alleviating pain from osseous metastases in cancer patients, for the treatment of joint pain resulting from inflamed synovium (radiosynoviorthesis, or radiosynovectomy), or from various other forms of arthritic disease, and their possible application for the treatment of metastatic bone disease. There is, however, a paucity of published data on the bio-pharmacokinetics of most of these agents when used following intravenous administration for the above applications. This paper will briefly review and summarize the presently available chemical and biopharmacokinetic information on the various clinically approved as well as experimental bone-localizing therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, currently utilized primarily for bone pain palliation, and make projections on their potential clinical application for the treatment joint diseases and of primary/metastatic cancer in bone.
Bone seekers, Therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, Pain palliation, Bio-pharmacokinetics, Radiosynovectomy, Bone metastases
