Targeted Radionuclide Therapy in Metastatic Prostate Cancer Using a New PSMA Ligand Radiolabelled With Terbium-161 (161Tb-SibuDAB) - Dose Identification/Escalation Phase Ia/b Study

Radioligand therapy (RLT) has emerged as an effective treatment of metastatic, castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) for those patients having, prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-positive disease. This led to the FDA approval of 177Lu-PSMA-617 (PluvictoTM), a PSMA ligand radiolabelled with the β--particle emitter lutetium-177(177Lu). Despite the success of this treatment modality, the therapeutic response after RLT with 177Lu-based PSMA radioligands is limited and disease relapse inevitable. In addition, approximately 1/3 of the patients does not respond to 177Lu-based RLT despite PSMA-positive mCRPC. It has been hypothesized that the insufficient absorbed dose delivery to macroscopic tumours and, in particular, to microscopic metastases with currently used 177Lu-based PSMA radioligands is the reason for the treatment failure in these patients. SibuDAB, a novel long-circulating PSMA ligand, was successfully tested in the preclinical setting in combination with terbium-161 (161Tb) that emits not only β--particles but also conversion and Auger electrons and, hence, delivers 2-4 times higher absorbed doses to microscopic tumours than 177Lu. The researchers, therefore, propose to enhance the efficacy of PSMA-targeting RLT by using the long-circulating ligand (SibuDAB) labelled with 161Tb. The researchers expect 161Tb-SibuDAB to exhibit increased and/or prolonged tumour uptake with a higher deposition of energy (due to short ranged Auger electrons) resulting in a high linear energy transfer (LET) and, hence, relative biological effectiveness. 161Tb-SibuDAB should not only deliver the absorbed dose to the cellular nucleus (via β-- radiation) but also to the cell membrane and organelles (through the emission of conversion and Auger electrons) which, in mathematical models, leads to a 3-4-fold increased absorbed dose to single cancer cells compared to standard RLT.