March 31 is World Theranostics Day. This day is all about raising awareness and celebrating the importance of using theranostics in medicine.
Now, you might be wondering what theranostics means. Well, it’s a combination of two words: therapy and diagnostics. This is a type of medical treatment that involves both diagnosing and treating a disease at the same time.
In the field of nuclear medicine, theranostics is particularly important. Nuclear medicine uses radioactive materials to diagnose and treat diseases. Theranostics takes this a step further by using radioactive materials to both diagnose and treat a disease.
One example of theranostics in nuclear medicine is lutetium PSMA. PSMA stands for prostate-specific membrane antigen. This is a protein that is found on the surface of prostate cancer cells. Lutetium PSMA is a radioactive material that targets these cancer cells.
Here’s how it works: first, a patient is given a diagnostic test using a radioactive material called gallium PSMA. This material attaches to the PSMA protein on the surface of prostate cancer cells. This allows doctors to see where the cancer cells are located in the body using a special imaging machine called a PET scanner.
Once the cancer cells have been located, the patient can be given lutetium PSMA as a treatment. This material also attaches to the PSMA protein on the cancer cells. But because it’s radioactive, it can kill the cancer cells from the inside out.
This is a very targeted and precise form of treatment. Because the lutetium PSMA only attaches to the cancer cells, it doesn’t harm healthy cells in the body. This means that patients experience fewer side effects than they would with other types of cancer treatments.
Lutetium PSMA is just one example of how theranostics is being used in nuclear medicine to diagnose and treat diseases. By using radioactive materials in this way, doctors are able to provide more effective and targeted treatments for their patients.
So, on this World Theranostics Day, let’s take a moment to appreciate the incredible advances that have been made in the field of nuclear medicine. Theranostics is an exciting and rapidly developing area of medicine, and it’s changing the way we approach the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
