Overlooked Contributions on Sodium Iodide Symporter

TO THE EDITOR:

We are delighted to see interest in the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) growing in the nuclear medicine community, as reflected in the recent continuing education article authored by Chung (1). Nonetheless, we were disappointed that some of our own contributions to the field were overlooked. Specifically, we cite our abstract, published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine in 2001 (2), which was the first to convincingly demonstrate that perrhenate, pertechnetate, and iodide show remarkably similar biodistribution in NIS-expressing and -nonexpressing normal tissues in mice. Furthermore, our subsequent article, published last year (3), not only contained dosimetry calculations as Chung states but was, in fact, the first to give a detailed rationale for using rhenium isotopes for treatment of NIS-expressing tumors. Tumor uptake was demonstrated in the absence of organification by the tumor, which proved the principle of this concept in an animal model of breast cancer.

As the role of a continuing education article (1) is to educate the broad readership of the Journal, we believe it especially important to present a balanced and thorough record of all investigators’ contributions to date.