Doctors have a new tool in the fight to detect cancer quickly.
The drug would help determine whether patients with suspicious chest X-rays need a biopsy for lung cancer. NeoTect, approved Wednesday, is for patients whose chest X-rays or CT scans show a mass that doctors cannot say is benign or cancerous. Sometimes scars, for instance, appear suspicious. Many types of lung cancer produce a protein called somatostatin. NeoTect carries a radioactive label that lights up the cancer under a common nuclear-medicine camera.