DOTA-TATE

And that physiology directly informs our diagnostic workup.

Right, because when a child presents with this bleeding, the gold standard is the ninety-nine millitc pertechnetate scan.

Universally known as the Meckel’s scan.

The radioisotope is actively taken up by the heterotopic gastric mucosa, right?

You can also draw a serum chromogranin A level.

For imaging and staging, we have moved away from the old octreotide spec scans.

The current gold standard is the DOTA-TATE PET scan.

Which binds to somatostatin receptors with incredibly high affinity, allowing us to find even tiny multifocal metastases.

They can be just millimeters across, but causing absolute havoc.

Historically, we used an octreotide scan, but today the absolute gold standard is the gallium sixty-eight DOTATATE PET scan.

DOTATATE.

What does that do?

PNETs are covered in somatostatin receptors.

The DOTATATE radiotracer has an incredibly high affinity for those specific receptors.

It lights up the primary tumor and any microscopic metastases with brilliant sensitivity.

Wow.