Exploration of Cardiology

Table 1. Summary of radiotracers and their applications in cardio-oncology [18, 19].

Radiotracer	Target	Diagnostic advantage	Potential application in cardio-oncology
⁶⁸Ga-DOTATATE	Somatostatin receptors (SSTR) on activated inflammatory cells	High sensitivity for inflammatory infiltration	Imaging myocardial inflammation in ICI myocarditis
[⁶⁸Ga]pentixafor	Chemokine Receptor CXCR4 on pro-inflammatory immune cells	Quantification of CXCR4+ immune cell burden	Imaging coronary inflammation and remodelling
¹⁸F-DHMT	Superoxide production (reactive oxygen species)	Direct oxidative stress detection	Early detection of anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity
⁶⁸Ga-FAPI	Fibroblast activation protein (FAP)	Direct imaging of active fibrosis	Imaging myocardial fibrosis in post-therapy cardiomyopathy

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge The Lind League, Nigeria, for providing the institutional resources that supported this research project. Some of the subfigures in this manuscript were generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence image generation tools [Perplexity AI]. These images were reviewed and verified by the authors prior to inclusion.

Author contributions

PA: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Supervision, Validation, Project administration. NOC: Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Data curation. ONO: Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Data curation. WS: Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Data curation. SO: Writing—review & editing, Supervision. YT: Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Data curation. HB: Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Data curation. FM: Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Data curation. All authors read and approved the submitted version.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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