Breast cancer continues to be the most lethal cancer type in women and one of the most diagnosed. Understanding Breast cancer receptor status is one of the most vital processes for determining treatment options. One type of breast cancer, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) positive, has approved receptor-based therapies including trastuzumab and pertuzumab that can significantly increase the likelihood of survival. Current methods to determine HER2 status include biopsies with immunohistochemical staining and/or fluorescence in situ hybridization. However, positron emission tomography (PET) imaging techniques using ⁸⁹Zr-trastuzumab or ⁸⁹Zr-pertuzumab are currently in clinical trials for a non-invasive, full body diagnostic approach. Although the antibodies have strong specificity to the HER2 positive lesions, challenges involving long post-injection time for imaging due to the blood circulation of the antibodies and matching of long-live isotopes leading to increased dose to the patient leave opportunities for alternative PET imaging probes. Peptides have been shown to allow for shorter injection-to-imaging time and can be used with shorter lived isotopes. HER2 specific peptides under development will help improve the diagnosis and potentially therapy options for HER2 positive breast cancer. Peptides showing specificity for HER2 could start widespread development of molecular imaging techniques for HER2 positive cancers.

乳腺癌仍然是女性中最致命的癌症类型，也是诊断最多的癌症之一。了解乳腺癌受体状态是确定治疗方案的最重要过程之一。人类表皮生长因子受体2（HER2）阳性是一种乳腺癌，已批准包括曲妥珠单抗和帕妥珠单抗在内的基于受体的疗法，这些疗法可显着提高生存率。当前确定HER2状态的方法包括采用免疫组织化学染色和/或荧光原位杂交的活检。但是，使用⁸⁹ Zr-曲妥珠单抗或^89的正电子发射断层扫描（PET）成像技术Zr-pertuzumab目前正在以一种非侵入性的全身诊断方法进行临床试验。尽管抗体对HER2阳性病变具有很强的特异性，但由于抗体的血液循环以及长寿命同位素的匹配，导致注射后需要较长的成像时间，并导致患者剂量增加，这给其他PET成像探针提供了机遇。肽已被证明可以缩短注射到成像的时间，并且可以与更短寿命的同位素一起使用。正在开发的HER2特异性肽将有助于改善HER2阳性乳腺癌的诊断和可能的治疗选择。显示出对HER2特异性的肽可能会开始广泛开发针对HER2阳性癌症的分子成像技术。