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Radiolabeled chemotherapeutics as a novel strategy for targeted cancer therapy: current insights and future perspectives

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Abstract

The use of radiolabeled chemotherapeutics is an exciting prospect in the management of cancer, as lethal cytotoxic radiation dose can be delivered to the cancerous lesions by using minimum amount of chemotherapy drugs, thereby without exerting significant chemotoxic dose burden to the patients, and thus overcoming one of the serious impediments of chemotherapeutic interventions. There is a huge array of natural and synthetic chemotherapeutic drugs, which find regular use in cancer therapy. Radiolabeling some of these drugs with suitable therapeutic radionuclides have been achieved successfully and these radiolabeled agents have shown considerable promise in the pre-clinical studies. This article archives the efforts directed towards developing radiolabeled chemotherapeutics for therapeutic intervention of cancers and results obtained till date with such agents.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Radiopharmaceuticals Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai, 400085, India

    Akanksha Jain & Tapas Das

  2. Homi Bhabha National Institute, Anushaktinagar, Mumbai, 400094, India

    Tapas Das

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  1. Akanksha Jain
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  2. Tapas Das
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Correspondence to Tapas Das.

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Jain, A., Das, T. Radiolabeled chemotherapeutics as a novel strategy for targeted cancer therapy: current insights and future perspectives. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 333, 1–15 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-023-09250-3

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