ABSTRACT
Most neuroendocrine tumors (NT) and a few others, such as small cell lung cancer, hepatomas, lymphomas, breast cancer, and meningiomas, have a variable degree of over-expression of somatostatin receptors (SSTRs) on their cellular surface (1–4). Somatostatin is a tetradecapeptide produced by the hypothalamus and pancreas with a very short biological half-life. It is possible to recognize five different sub-types (5) of SSTRs, with the SSTR2 sub-type as the most prevalent. The synthetic variant of the human somatostatin with a chain of 8 peptides, named Octreotide, has the advantage of a prolonged “in vivo” half-life retaining its specificity for the cellular receptors. These characteristics allow the detection of both primary tumors and their metastases by diagnostic scintigraphic images with this polypeptide labeled with In (6–7).
