CSCs are highly tumorigenic, self-renewable cells that play a key role in tumor relapse, metastasis, and therapy resistance. Although the clinical significance of eliminating CSCs is clearly recognized and CSC immunotherapies have been examined in preclinical and clinical evaluations, the development of such therapies remains a challenge.

“Radioimmunotherapy enables precise, target-specific delivery of particulate radiation to cancer-associated antigens, while minimizing off-target accumulation and increasing tumor retention and irradiation, which makes it a promising choice for targeting CSCs,” stated Jürgen Grünberg, Ph.D., senior scientist at the Center for Radiopharmaceutical Sciences, Center for Life Sciences at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland.

“Our study sought to investigate the effectiveness of a new radionuclide Terbium-161 (¹⁶¹Tb) for eradicating CSCs due to emission of short-ranged conversion and Auger electrons—besides beta-minus particle—successfully eliminated ovarian CSCs in contrast to Lutetium-177 (¹⁷⁷Lu).”