Radiopharmaceuticals for Non-Glucose-Specific Oncology (PET and SPECT) (A Review)

To date, the most common drug for diagnosis of cancer tumors is [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose, a radiopharmaceutical for positron emission tomography, which utilizes an increased glucose metabolism by cancer cells. At the same time, the approach based on glucose derivatives is not applicable in some cases. Inflammatory or other benign processes are often indistinguishable from tumors when the tumor is not specific to glucose, i.e., not only the malignant but also healthy cells actively consume [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose. In these cases, it is necessary to utilize other metabolic pathways, which can be specific to radiopharmaceuticals for a specific tumor in a given organ.