Theranostics is a new field of medicine that combines imaging and molecular radiotherapy. Imaging, generally positron emission tomography (PET), is used to identify the tumor, followed by a radiopharmaceutical – a radioactive drug that, like the PET agent that identified it, specifically targets cancer while leaving most healthy tissues alone. Unlike external beam radiotherapy, molecular radiotherapy carries the radioactivity in the form of particles that are emitted from the radiopharmaceutical.
