New PET Option May Better Target Prostate Cancer Treatment

Posted by PET / CT of Las Colinas on January 22nd, 2017

While many men diagnosed with prostate cancer find their disease is low risk and highly treatable, that is not always the case. Some prostate cancers are especially aggressive and manage to spread rapidly to the bones and other nearby tissue. Effectively seeking out the locations of metastatic cells while monitoring the success of treatments, such as radiation or chemotherapy, can be critical for survival in these cases. Researchers believe they have found a way to make a standard positron emission tomography, or PET, scan more effective in this regard.

Research into a newly created imaging method has shown strong promise for helping clinicians better detect, monitor and even guide treatment on an individual patient level. The technique calls for using a relatively new tracer that is able to light up areas of spread while enabling a better measure of disease activity. The tracer essentially enables clinicians to track disease sites in real time. This, in turn, may enable the ability to better determine optimum treatment doses while reducing the likelihood of damaging side effects. The hope is that the new tracers will provide a way to use PET imaging before and after treatments to gauge effectiveness more rapidly, which could lead to improved patient outcomes.

How soon the new imaging method might be made available for use remains unclear. While preliminary trials have shown great promise, human testing remains to be performed. Even so, researchers are hopeful the new method will someday provide a way to better track and target prostate cancer and its treatment.

It is estimated that about 160,000 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in the coming year. While many cases are quite treatable, about 26,000 men will die from this cause. A man has about a one in seven chance of developing this disease over the course of a lifetime. About 1 out of 39 men die from prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is a risk for all men, especially as they age. There are widely available screening tools that can help doctors detect this disease in its earliest stages. With that in mind, it is recommended that all men discuss their personal risks for prostate cancer and their need for screening with their healthcare providers. While many prostate cancers are slow-growing and rather low risk, that is not always the case. Early detection can lead to lifesaving interventions in these cases, making routine screening important for men on a regular basis.

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