ABSTRACT
Background The use of therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals to target cancer is possibly as close as medicine has come to achieving the dream of the ‘magic bullet’, first proposed by Paul Ehrlich. A therapeutic radiopharmaceutical consists of two parts, a vector and a radioisotope. The vector takes the radioisotope to the tumor cells, where the radioactivity kills the tumor cells leaving normal cells unharmed. The choice of vector and isotope is critical for achieving an effective radiopharmaceutical.
