Radionuclide Metabolic Therapy (2013)
October 2013
This year we have focussed on radionuclide therapy for our book. For decades, radionuclide therapy has been used to help manage a range of malignant and benign diseases, and for many pathologies, its utility is well-known and well-documented. In the early years, the radionuclide range and the pathologies which could be managed (treatment and/or palliation) were limited. However, significant progress continues to be made, and there has been considerable expansion in the available therapeutic radionuclides and the pathologies they can manage.
On this basis, we feel it is time for this book to be published. The book brings together experts in the field of radionuclide therapy from Europe and America so that they can share their theoretical knowledge and clinical/practical experience. These experts emanate from various professional backgrounds and include medical physicists, nuclear medicine physicians, radiographers, nuclear medicine technologists and others. The book commences with background information about radionuclide therapy (Section I). If you are new to radionuclide therapy, then we suggest that special attention is paid to the first four chapters as the information covered will give you a good theoretical grounding; with this in mind, you can progress to read about the clinical and technical aspects of radionuclide therapy in Section II. Here, attention is paid to how to conduct radiotherapy procedures and the pathologies it can treat and/or where it can be used for palliation. This section contains significant input from those who practice radionuclide therapy, especially nuclear medicine physicians and others with various relevant clinical skills. In Section III, we consider the future, and particular emphasis is placed on molecular therapy. The final chapter considers new radionuclides, which may become valuable in the future. We should like to thank the authors who have taken the time to write the chapters and also the reviewers who have provided constructive feedback to the authors. We acknowledge that writing and reviewing involve a considerable effort, and we hope that the readers will find this book useful for training and practical purposes.