Not Just Chemo, Radionuclide Therapy Is Another Cancer Treatment Available; Know Everything From An Expert

What is radionuclide therapy? Radionuclide therapy is a type of radiation therapy treatment option for cancer. In this, nuclear medicine is combined with radioactive sources for the targetted treatment of radiation on tumours or target cancer affected organs of the body. For benign tumours, such as thyrotoxicosis and arthritis, radionuclide therapy can even help in avoiding surgery or other medical treatments. For treating cancer, it is an advantage as it focuses on target selectivity (such as brachytherapy or external beam radiotherapy). Onlymyhealth editorial team talked to Dr. Ankur Pruthi, Consultant & Head Nuclear Medicine, HCMCT Manipal Hospital, Dwarka, about radionuclide therapy. 

If combined with chemotherapy, radionuclide can be helpful in making a useful therapeutic strategy with curative intent or for controlling the spread of cancer in the body. Toxicity is usually restricted till the haematopoietic tissue and there are very few side-effects that have been observed. On one hand, there are no short term side effects of this therapy like other treatments. However, there can be long-term consequences of radionuclide therapy like fertility disorders and leukaemia. Read on to know more about radionuclide therapy. 

How does radionuclide therapy treat cancer? 

Radionuclide therapy, which is also known as internal radiation therapy, basically uses radioactive material called a radioisotope that moves  throughout the body. Cancer cells get destroyed by the radioactive material. For NETs, the radioactive material is generally combined with a substance, which is a radiopharmaceutical, that targets particular molecules present on the surface of cancer cells. With the help of this radiopharmaceutical, radiation gets delivered directly to the cancer cells and restricts the impact of radiation on normal cells. Radionuclide therapy can also be called targeted radiation therapy or systemic radiation therapy. 

Also read: What Are The Side Effects Of Radiation Therapy? Know From An Expert

Radionuclide therapy is a bit different from external radiation therapy for cancer treatment. According to Dr. Ankur, "Radionuclide therapy is a cost effective treatment option for cancer. It can cure certain types of cancers, such as prostate cancers, thyroid cancer, liver tumors and many gastrointestinal tumors relating to stomach and intestine. A lot of new research is also going on where I expect in a decade or so, all the cancers will have radionuclide therapies available for the patient." 

Radionuclide therapy side effects 

Dr. Ankur said, "The entire benefit of radionuclide therapy lies in the fact that there are not many side effects associated with it. These are highly targetted and personalised treatments. Once we administer this medicine to the patient in the form of capsules, liquids or injections, where they go and enter into the tumor cell, further destroying it with the help of radiation. Thereby, there are very minimal side effects on of radionuclide therapy for cancer treatment on rest of the tissues and body organs. Therefore, there is no hair loss, skin reactions, etc as we see in multiple other cancer treatment options." 

How much time does radionuclide therapy take for treatment? 

Administration of radionuclide therapy is a one day process. But, the effect takes around 3-6 months. Gradually, the patient starts responding and changes start occuring in two to three weeks. Measurable responses of cancer patients come after the end of one or two months. 

Also read: Radiotherapy Vs Chemotherapy: Let's Understand The Difference And Side Effects

The technological advancements and medical developments have led to a drastic surge in the availability of new cancer treatments for patients. All the cancer treatments are complimentary to each other. All the expert teams including medical, oncology and surgical sit together to discuss the cancer patient's profile as these are personalised combination of therapies. Radionuclide therapy is given to the patient at a particular stage of cancer. There are minimal chances of cancer coming back after this course of treatment.