Endocrine Abstracts

Application of Ga-68 for clinical and non-clinical studies are rapidly growing in Asia. In this study, China, India, Japan, and Korea were selected to follow up the current status. In case of clinical trial, India was the most active among the four countries. Most of clinical trials in India were imaging studies of neuroendocrine tumor patients by using somatostatin derivatives such as ⁶⁸Ga-DOTA-TOC, ⁶⁸Ga-DOTA-NOC and ⁶⁸Ga-DOTA-TATE. Prostate cancer patients imaging by targeting prostate surface membrane antigen (PSMA) also was very active recently. Korea was the second active in clinical research. Angiogenesis imaging studies in breast cancer, glioma, atherosclerosis, and moyamoya disease patients have been reported using ⁶⁸Ga-RGD derivatives in Korea. In China, angiogenesis imaging in glioma and lung cancer patients have been reported using a derivative of ⁶⁸Ga-labeled RGD dimer. Clinical study of ⁶⁸Ga-labeled agents was not very active in Japan. One of the reason might be because ¹⁸F is more readily available than other countries due to the extensive distribution of cyclotrons. On the other hand, non-clinical studies such as developing bisphosphonate derivatives for bone imaging, benzofuran derivatives for Alzheimer disease patients’ imaging, and ⁶⁸Ga-Df-anti-HER2-scFv for cancer imaging have been performed in Japan. Development of ⁶⁸Ga-nitroimidazole derivatives for hypoxia imaging, ⁶⁸Ga-mannosylated human serum albumin (MSA) for mannose receptor imaging, and ⁶⁸Ga-labeled nanoparticles for PSMA imaging were reported in Korea. A new RGD derivative NGR for imaging angiogenesis was reported in China. However, non-clinical study such as development of new imaging agents labeled with ⁶⁸Ga was not very active in India. In conclusion, the clinical application and development of ⁶⁸Ga-labeled agents is increasing in Asia very rapidly, and would become one of the major places in the near future.