Yttrium-90 (90Y) in the principal radionuclide therapies: An efficacy correlation between peptide receptor radionuclide therapy, radioimmunotherapy and transarterial radioembolization therapy. Ten years of experience (1999–2009)

The clinical application of the pure beta emitter 90Y constitutes a fundamental advancement in non-invasive medicine. Nowadays, mainly three oncological therapies exploit the intrinsic emissive characteristic of 90Y. Radionuclide therapies include peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) in neuroendocrine tumour (NET) treatment, radioimmunotherapy (RIT) in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) treatment and transarterial radioembolization therapy (TARET) in unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and liver metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) treatment. The last ten years of clinical experience from E-PubMed research have been reviewed and an efficacy correlation between 90Y-therapies has shown a better objective response rate for RIT (ORR 80 ± 15%; range 53–100) compared to PRRT (ORR 23.5 ± 14%; range 9–50), and TARET (ORR for mCRC, 40 ± 25%; range 19–91, and ORR for HCC, 42 ± 20%; range 20–82). This review reports on the state of the art of the efficacy of 90Y-therapies from the last decade and discusses new perspectives of therapeutic development.