Recent Advances in Radio Ligand Therapy of Prostate Cancer: PSMA and Beyond

Prostate cancer represents one of the most common malignancies in men in developed countries with increasing incidence in recent years due to the progressive population ageing; however, the development of even more effective and personalized treatments contributes to improving survival and disease control, especially in more advanced stages when castration resistant clones prevail and conventional therapies with androgen receptor-directed drugs fail or are not applicable. The advent of theranostic agents, especially those directed against the prostate specific membrane antigen PSMA, paved the way to new highly personalized treatments with a very high efficacy in slowing down the disease progression, improving the overall survival and, ultimately, ameliorating the quality of life, moreover allowing the monitoring of disease during and at the end of the treatment itself. More recently, the advent of new non-PSMA based theranostic radio ligands (e.g. FAP-directed, gastrin releasing peptide receptors…) and the possible application of these theranostic agents in earlier phases of the disease are opening up fascinating opportunities in preventing the development of more aggressive stages, ideally blocking the disease at a curable level. Unfortunately, the molecular mechanisms triggered by those theranostics are not well known yet. They need to be further investigated at pre-clinical and clinical stages in order to clarify the key points and improve the specificity of the newly synthesized radio ligands. The goal of this Research Topic is to summarize more recent key advances in radio ligand therapy of prostate cancer, especially focusing on new applications of PSMA-based theranostic agents for the disease treatment in earlier stages (metastatic hormone-sensitive patients or non-metastatic castration resistant ones, or even as first-line), and on non PSMA-based ligands (such as FAP-directed, gastrin releasing peptide receptors…) to treat PSMA-negative disease or lesions not responding to PSMA-directed radio ligands. Additionally, basic and pre-clinical research studies on those ligands are welcome.Specifically, submissions addressing the following themes are highly welcome:● Original research articles on the application of PSMA-based radio ligands in specific disease settings such as metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, or non-metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer● Original research articles on the application of new PSMA-based radio ligands, either labelled with beta-emitters (e.g. Lutetium-177, Yttrium-90), alpha-emitters (e.g. Actinium-221, Bismuth-213) or Auger electron-emitters (e.g. Terbium-161)● Original research on the application of new non-PSMA-based radio ligands in patients with prostate cancer● Systematic or narrative reviews on the application of PSMA-based radio ligands in specific disease settings as metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, or non-metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer● Systematic or narrative reviews on the application of new PSMA-based or non-PSMA-based radio ligands in patients with prostate cancer● Pre-clinical research on cell or little animal models focusing on new non-PSMA-based radio ligands, including dosimetry studies● Case reports in patients undergoing therapy with non-PSMA-based radio ligand agentsPlease note: Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent clinical or patient cohort, or biological validation in vitro or in vivo, which are not based on public databases) are not suitable for publication in this journal. Topic editors: Carmelo Caldarella, Alberto Miceli, Pietro Di Fazio Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/80905/recent-advances-in-radio-ligand-therapy-of-prostate-cancer-psma-and-beyond