Radiopharmeceutical therapy extravasation
Abstract:
Lutetium-177 (177Lu) dotatate has been offered at Fox Chase Cancer Center since 2017 as part of a clinical trial and then in 2018 as a commercially available cancer therapy, and we thought we were prepared for most 177Lu issues by the fall of 2020. A single phone call identified that the Radiation Safety Department had not been prepared to address extravasations. Fortunately for the patient and Radiation Safety, the 177Lu therapies are administered by an infusion nurse and Fox Chase Cancer Center has a robust infusion center. The expertise of our infusion center team helped to quickly identify specific mitigation efforts to employ. A team of radiation safety and diagnostic medical physicists worked together to estimate a tissue dose. Research was also started with the aim of identifying therapeutic 177Lu extravasations as early as possible. The lessons we learned and plans for future early identification of 177Lu dotatate extravasations are the basis of this paper.
Reference:
Berry K, Kendrick J. Lutetium-177 radiopharmeceutical therapy extravasation lessons learned. Health Phys. 2022 Mar 22. doi: 10.1097/HP.0000000000001558. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35318982.