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Strategies For Her2 Targeted Pet Imaging, Maxwell Adams Ducharme

All ETDs from UAB

Breast cancer is one of the most common and deadly cancers diagnosed in women each year. The HER2-positive subtype of breast cancer is associated with poor prognosis and lower progression-free survival. Early identification of HER2 expression is extremely important for the effective treatment of the disease. Current methods to diagnose HER2-positive breast cancer involve invasive biopsies to semi-quantitatively determine the amount of HER2 expression. However, many lesions are often unavailable for biopsy due to their location and there may be variable HER2 expression between the primary tumor and metastasis. Positron emission tomography (PET) can give a full-body, non-invasive evaluation of …