Radiopharmaceuticals for Treatment of Osteosarcoma

Although trace amounts of radioactivity are routinely used to detect osteosarcoma, the use of larger therapeutic amounts of radiation is often an unrecognized opportunity to treat metastatic osteosarcoma. This chapter will review a number of approaches to use ionizing radiation in the form of injectable radiopharmaceuticals. Since bone metastases are a common pattern of metastatic spread of cancer in general, a number of bone-seeking radiopharmaceuticals have been developed and FDA approved for treatment of bone metastases. Although osteosarcoma, a bone-forming cancer, would seem ideally suited to be treated with bone seekers, patterns of relapse involving non-ossifying metastases remain a major problem to be overcome. Thus, this review will not only describe experience using a number of bone-seeking radiopharmaceuticals such as 153-samarium-EDTMP, 153-samarium-DOTMP, and 223-radium against osteosarcoma, but also approaches to identify patients who may benefit as well as some means to the improve overall efficacy including combination therapy with routine agents and using nuclear imaging to develop best strategy for use. These include imaging with not only Tc-MDP standard bone scans, but also Tc-MDP bone scans with SPECT CT, bone-specific sodium fluoride PET-CT (NaF), and FDG-PET-CT. Accurate knowledge of oligometastatic active disease can facilitate more effective use of combination therapy, including radiosensitizers and local control measures, for example, stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) and/or cryoablation to reduce disease burden as well as manage and prevent micrometastatic disease from growing and metastasizing. Finally, a new tumor-specific radiopharmaceutical, CLR 131, may also provide another radiopharmaceutical to treat both osteoblastic and non-ossifying areas of osteosarcoma.