Is there a clinical usefulness for radiolabeled somatostatin analogues beyond the consolidated role in NETs?

The somatostatin (SS) receptor scintigraphy (SRS), using octreotide radiolabelled with In (Ocreoscan©, OCT), is a consolidated diagnostic procedure in patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NET) because of an increased expression of somatostatin receptors (SS-R) on neoplastic cells. Uptake of SS analogues (SSA) can also be due to SS-R expression on nonmalignant cells when activated as lymphocytes, macrophages, fibroblasts, vascular cells. Because of this uptake, clinical indications can be found either in neoplasms not overexpressing SS-R, as nonsmall cell lung cancer, and in active benign diseases. Nevertheless, clinical application of SRS has not found clinical relevance yet. In this paper, we discuss the nononcologic fields of clinical interest in which SRS could play a clinical role such as diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy of benign and chronic diseases such as sarcoidosis, histiocytosis, rheumatoid arthritis, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and Graves' ophthalmopathy.