Rhenium-188 skin cancer therapy
A radioactive paste is spread over a thin film placed on top of a skin cancer. The radiation only travels a few millimetres, so it treats the visible tumour without surgery, cutting, or affecting deeper tissue.
Overview
Rhenium-SCT (Skin Cancer Therapy) is a non-invasive, single-session epidermal brachytherapy for non-melanoma skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma), developed by OncoBeta. Rhenium-188 (half-life about 17 hours) is produced on demand from a tungsten-188/rhenium-188 generator and formulated as a resin that is applied to an adhesive foil placed over the lesion, so the radioactive material never directly contacts the skin. A typical prescribed dose is 50 Gy to the deepest point of the lesion (target depth up to about 3 mm).
The device and compound are registered in Australia (ARTG, class IIb, from 2020-2022) and hold CE marking, with use reported across Europe, the UK, New Zealand and South Africa; it does not have FDA approval. A single-arm, multicentre phase 4 post-marketing study (EPIC-Skin) reported, at 12 months, lesion-based complete response in 94.1% and partial response in 3.2% of 185 evaluable lesions, with no toxicities above CTCAE grade 2 and favourable cosmetic and quality-of-life outcomes; an earlier Italian series (Castellucci et al., EJNMMI Physics) reported 98% complete lesion response at 6 months in 54 evaluable lesions.
Because treatment is external and the isotope's beta range is only a few millimetres, Rhenium-SCT is positioned for lesions ≤3 mm deep and ≤8 cm2 in difficult-to-treat cosmetic or functional sites (nose, ear, lip, digits, genitals) where surgery or conventional external-beam radiotherapy is less attractive.
1.Rhenium-188 skin cancer therapy slips into a pocket on its target.
- Route
- Topical epidermal application (resin on adhesive foil placed over the lesion)
- Schedule
- Single outpatient session, typically prescribing 50 Gy to the deepest point of the lesion
Source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12197855/. Doses are for orientation; the current label governs.
Approvals
| Region | Year | Indication |
|---|---|---|
| EU/UK/AU/NZ/ZA | 2015 | Shallow (≤3 mm deep) basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma without perineural invasion or high-risk pathology · CE marking and national device registrations; not FDA approved |
Trials
topTrials recruiting now
Country and place are remembered in this browser only. A postcode is sent to OpenStreetMap's Nominatim service to find coordinates when you press the button; nothing else leaves your device.
Latest papers
topQuery for this drug: (TITLE:"Rhenium-188 skin cancer therapy" OR ABSTRACT:"Rhenium-188 skin cancer therapy" OR TITLE:"Rhenium-SCT" OR ABSTRACT:"Rhenium-SCT" OR TITLE:"188Re epidermal radionuclide therapy" OR ABSTRACT:"188Re epidermal radionuclide therapy") AND (radiopharmaceutical OR radioligand OR radionuclide OR theranostic OR "nuclear medicine" OR "molecular imaging" OR radiotracer OR scintigraphy OR cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about Rhenium-188 skin cancer therapy, not a curated reading list.
Similar pages
not linked directly; found by shared links- CompanyOncoBeta
Shares Rhenium-188 and the tags skin cancer, beta emitter.
- AgentIodine-125 brachytherapy seeds
Shares Low-dose-rate seed brachytherapy and the tag brachytherapy.