Abstract
Folate receptors are up-regulated on a variety of human cancers, including cancers of the breast, ovaries, endometrium, lungs, kidneys, colon, brain, and myeloid cells of hematopoietic origin. This over-expression of folate receptors (FR) on cancer tissues can be exploited to target folate-linked imaging and therapeutic agents specifically to FR-expressing tumors, thereby avoiding uptake by most healthy tissues that express few if any FR. Four folate-targeted therapeutic drugs are currently undergoing clinical trials, and several folate-linked chemotherapeutic agents are in late stage preclinical development. However, because not all cancers express FR, and because only FR-expressing cancers respond to FR-targeted therapies, FR-targeted imaging agents have been required to select patients with FR-expressing tumors likely to respond to folate-targeted therapies. This review focuses on recent advances in the use of the vitamin folic acid to target PET agents, γ-emitters, MRI contrast agents and fluorescent dyes to FR+ cancers for the purpose of diagnosing and imaging malignant masses with improved specificity and sensitivity.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 655-664 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Cancer and Metastasis Reviews |
Volume | 27 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 1 2008 |
Keywords
- Cancer-specific imaging
- Folate receptor
- MRI
- Optical imaging
- PET
- SPECT
- Targeted molecular imaging
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Oncology
- Cancer Research