Cho is a nuclear medicine specialist at UW Health | Carbone Cancer Center who treats patients with radioactive drugs that can seek out and destroy cancer cells. He is also an active researcher and part of Carbone Cancer Center’s growing work in theranostics. This field of nuclear medicine combines “therapy” and “diagnostics” and uses a dual approach of imaging technology and targeted therapies to identify and treat advanced stage cancers. These therapies focus on infusing a radioactive drug that is administered to both bind to the cancer target and deliver treatment right to it.
“Dating back to the 1930s and also under the “Atoms for Peace” program in the 1950s, people started to figure out how to use radioactivity, not to harm patients, but to be able to treat patients. [Theranostics] has been around for quite a bit of time, starting with radioactive iodine for thyroid cancer,” Cho said. “There's really nothing new under the sun, it’s just a new term, although the technology has improved significantly.”
Theranostics researchers work with radioactive drugs that are attracted to specific receptors on the surface of cancerous tumor cells. These drugs can be loaded with a radioactive imaging isotope that lets doctors maps cancer sites, and a dose of therapeutic radiation can then be attached to the drug to be taken directly to the tumors to treat them. Theranostics holds significant potential in improving metastatic cancer treatment.
Cho specializes in treating patients with the infusion of targeted radiopharmaceutical drugs, such as Pluvicto, used for advanced metastatic prostate cancer, and Lutathera, which treats metastatic neuroendocrine cancer, or cancer occurring in nerve or hormone-producing cells.
“Since the recent clinical approval of these two theranostics agents, there’s been a lot of excitement within the cancer field for this treatment modality for patients,” Cho said. “These treatments will really fill the niche and address unmet clinical needs for patients where there are no other good options.”
These treatments are important for patients whose cancer has spread throughout the body and where external-beam radiation and surgery are not effective. Theranostics infusions are used to target and treat multiple cancer sites throughout the body at the same time.
While these drugs are currently given in standard FDA-approved doses, Cho and colleagues are investigating how calculating specific radiation dosages to patients can optimize those treatments to limit toxicity and more effectively treat tumors. This involves dosimetry, which is the systematic measurement and calculation of the ionizing radiation dose absorbed by the body.
“Dosimetry is a way to figure out how much of the radiation dosage is going into normal organs, and how much it is effectively treating the cancerous tumors,” Cho said. “With dosimetry, we will be able to potentially treat some patients with several more doses to give them more benefit from the treatment, or to limit the doses for patients who are particularly sensitive to treatment.”
Cho is dedicated to advancing nuclear medicine’s ability to innovate patient care and provide better treatment outcomes.
“If you can extend someone’s quality of life for several years so that they can see their kids graduate from school or see them get married, this make an important and deep impact on their life and the people around them, which I think is tremendously gratifying,” Cho said. “Giving people the gift of time and quality of life is why patients are at the center of our theranostics research and clinical care at UW.”