Lutathera: New Treatment for Neuroendocrine Tumors at UVA

#uvahealth
Neuroendocrine tumors (NETS) grow in hormonal glands in the lungs, stomach, pancreas, or gut. Some produce hormones that damage your digestive system or blood sugar. Lutathera treats NETS by slowing down or stopping tumor growth. UVA is the only center in their region of Virginia to offer this radioactive drug. Lale Kostakoglu Shields, MD, MPH, explains the Lutathera treatment process.

Find out more at: https://uvahealth.com/services/imaging/nuclear-imaging/lutathera

Lutathera is a targeted radionuclide treatment that is developed to treat neuroendocrine
tumor patients, more specifically, gastroenteropancreatic tumor patients.

It gets internalized into the tumor and allows this radiation to cause damage to tumor cells with an ultimate goal of tumor shrinkage control progression.

It's a relatively highly safe treatment and effective treatment in disease control.

Neuroendocrine tumor patients don't have a lot of treatment options. If they fail the first-line treatment, this is the most effective treatment available that could be offered to neuroendocrine tumor patients.

Treatment consists of four cycles separated approximately two months from one another. Altogether it's an eight-month treatment.

The patient arrives at nuclear medicine early in the morning. It usually takes five hours to complete the treatment. It's a full day of outpatient treatment for each cycle.

When the patient is eligible, and we decide to treat the patient at UVA, we contact the local physician and explain the process to them.

At UVA, we are the only center offering this treatment in Virginia, except northern Virginia. We have a reliable infrastructure consisting of multi-disciplinary expertise, nurses, and coordinators. We also have a treatment room dedicated to this treatment, radiation safety, monitoring, and a highly skilled nursing and physician team.

Видео Lutathera: New Treatment for Neuroendocrine Tumors at UVA канала uvahealth