[177Lu]Lu-DOTA-TATE plus long-acting octreotide versus high‑dose long-acting octreotide for the treatment of newly diagnosed, advanced grade 2–3, well-differentiated, gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours

• GUEST: Rodney Hicks, Melbourne

Welcome to Episode 17 of “Dive into Imaging Science”!
🎧 Tune in for a dynamic discussion on how NETTER-2 may reshape treatment strategies for neuroendocrine tumours, what it means for the wider field of theranostics, and where radioligand therapy is headed next.

For our seventeenth edition, we are at the stunning Certosa di Pontignano in Tuscany – the home of TOPIM, which focussed this year on Theranostics. 

🎯 Suitably, we discuss one of the most important recent studies in the field of nuclear medicine and oncology — the NETTER-2 trial, published in The Lancet in 2024. This landmark phase 3 study was the first to investigate radioligand therapy as a first-line treatment in patients with advanced grade 2–3 gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours. The results showed a dramatic improvement in progression-free survival and response rates compared with high-dose octreotide, setting the stage for radioligand therapy as a potential new standard of care. 

To guide us through this groundbreaking work, we are joined by a very special guest, Professor Rodney Hicks, a global leader in PET imaging and therapeutic nuclear medicine. Over the past three decades, Rod has been at the forefront of bringing molecular imaging and theranostics from the research lab into routine clinical practice. He has played a pivotal role in shaping how PET is used to diagnose, monitor, and now treat cancer, and his vision has helped establish theranostics as one of the most exciting frontiers in oncology today. 

The paper Markita selected for this episode, from Yulong Li’s lab and published in Science, features a sophisticated molecular sensor that reads out dopamine signalling in the brain via far-red fluorescence.

🍸 To top off our series of firsts, Giannis finally had a cocktail with us. For our first live recording, we wantedinitially to connect with Melbourne and Australia… maybe even F1-inspired. But after 10 minutes with Rod, we ditched that plan. His love of Greek mythology led us straight to Absinthe — named after Artemis herself.

Fast-forward to a wild hunt across Tuscany, ten taste-tests, and some brilliant Certosa bartenders later, we landed on:
The Siena Bliss — Absinthe, Mezcal, Aperol & lime: bold, mythical, and a little Tuscan magic.

Selected Publication: [¹⁷⁷Lu]Lu-DOTA-TATE plus long-acting octreotide versus high‑dose long-acting octreotide for the treatment of newly diagnosed, advanced grade 2–3, well-differentiated, gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (NETTER-2): an open-label, randomised, phase 3 study.
Singh, Simron et al.The Lancet, Volume 403, Issue 10446, 2807 – 2817

Further information on the European Society for Molecular Imaging:
https://e-smi.eu/
Contact: [email protected]