Shanghai Fourth People's Hospital, and School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
Department of Nuclear Medicine, Shanghai East Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
J Transl Med. 2022 Aug 12;20(1):358. doi: 10.1186/s12967-022-03559-5.
Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) are often aggressive, making advanced disease very difficult to treat using contemporary modalities, such as surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. However, targeted therapy, e.g., cetuximab, an epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitor, has demonstrated survival benefit in HNSCC patients with locoregional failure or distant metastasis. Molecular imaging aims at various biomarkers used in targeted therapy, and nuclear medicine-based molecular imaging is a real-time and non-invasive modality with the potential to identify tumor in an earlier and more treatable stage, before anatomic-based imaging reveals diseases. The objective of this comprehensive review is to summarize recent advances in nuclear medicine-based molecular imaging for HNSCC focusing on several commonly radiolabeled biomarkers. The preclinical and clinical applications of these candidate imaging strategies are divided into three categories: those targeting tumor cells, tumor microenvironment, and tumor angiogenesis. This review endeavors to expand the knowledge of molecular biology of HNSCC and help realizing diagnostic potential of molecular imaging in clinical nuclear medicine.
头颈部鳞状细胞癌（HNSCC）通常具有侵袭性，使得晚期疾病很难通过当代方法（如手术、放射治疗和化学疗法）进行治疗。然而，靶向治疗，例如表皮生长因子受体抑制剂西妥昔单抗，已经证明在局部区域失败或远处转移的 HNSCC 患者中有生存获益。分子成像旨在针对靶向治疗中使用的各种生物标志物，基于核医学的分子成像则是一种实时、非侵入性的方式，有可能在解剖成像显示疾病之前更早、更可治疗的阶段识别肿瘤。本综述的目的是总结核医学分子成像在 HNSCC 方面的最新进展，重点介绍几种常用放射性标记的生物标志物。这些候选成像策略的临床前和临床应用分为三类：靶向肿瘤细胞、肿瘤微环境和肿瘤血管生成。本综述旨在扩展 HNSCC 分子生物学的知识，并帮助实现临床核医学中分子成像的诊断潜力。
