Julie Sutcliffe Wins ‘Image of the Year’ for Theranostic Pair Research
The Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging, or SNMMI, has selected Professor of Biomedical Engineering Julie Sutcliffe to receive the 2023 SNMMI Henry N. Wagner, Jr., Image of the Year award.
Sutcliffe’s winning image is a grouping of photos that shows the first in-human evaluation of radionuclides ⁶⁸Ga and ¹⁷⁷Lu to diagnose and treat metastatic pancreatic cancer. The society identified the grouping as the best example of promising advances in nuclear and molecular imaging out of 1,500 submissions.
The research adds to the field of theranostics, a combination of “therapeutics” and “diagnostics.” Theranostics is an approach that pairs one radioactive compound for cancer identification (here, that’s ⁶⁸Ga) with another specialized for the treatment of cancer (¹⁷⁷Lu).
Through the research that resulted in the award-winning photo, Sutcliffe and her team of University of California, Davis, researchers have demonstrated the safety of the theranostic pair and its potential to make a significant improvement in the clinical care and treatment of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.
“Poor patient outcomes are due partly to the late stage at which the majority of patients are diagnosed and partly to the limited and relatively ineffective treatment options,” Sutcliffe said. “Our goal with this study was to develop a theranostic strategy to facilitate both earlier detection and more effective treatment for this devastating malignancy.”
Despite exhaustive testing and some encouraging advances in first- and second-line treatments, pancreatic cancer remains the most lethal type of cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 64,000 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2023, and more than 50,000 of them will die from the disease — a 5-year survival rate of only 12%.
17 patients have been imaged with ⁶⁸Ga and 14 patients have been treated with ¹⁷⁷Lu to date, with the theranostic pair also holding promise to treat other types of cancer.