Tag: prostate cancer

Categories : Cancer GenderTags :

Lower Prostate Cancer Rates in Transgender Women – But Risk Remains

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Ccancer-associated fibroplasts surrounding a prostate tumour. Credit: Moscat and Diaz Meco lab.

Transgender women keep their prostates after gender-affirming surgery, and as a result are still at risk for prostate cancer, though to what extent remained unclear. A first-of-its-kind study estimates the risk at about 14 cases per 10 000, a little less than half the risk for cisgender males.

The UC San Francisco-led study drew on 22 years of data from the Veterans Affairs Health System. Despite the small sample size due to the size of the transgender population, it is still the largest of its kind.

“What we know about prostate cancer to date is almost exclusively based on cisgender men,” said the study’s lead author, Farnoosh Nik-Ahd, MD, a urology resident at UCSF. “This is an important first step in reshaping how clinicians think about prostate cancer in transgender women.”

Transgender people often face discrimination and disparities, and there has been a growing acknowledgment of the complexities involved in their health care.

The study found 155 confirmed transgender women with prostate cancer and stratified them according to whether they had used oestrogen: 116 had never used oestrogen, 17 had once used oestrogen but stopped before they were diagnosed with prostate cancer and 22 were actively on oestrogen.

The median age of diagnosis was 61 years, and 88% of the patients were white. Just 8% were Black, suggesting possible disparities affecting this group. Black cisgender men are at higher risk of being diagnosed with and dying from prostate cancer.

Though reduced compared to cisgender males, risk remains

The authors found that prostate cancer occurs in transgender women more frequently than published accounts suggest, with about 14 prostate cancer cases annually per 10 000 transgender women. Still, that rate was lower than what could be expected based on cisgender males, with 33 cases annually per 10 000.

While the numbers were small in the new study, the data suggests that transgender women who take estrogen may have delayed diagnoses. The authors also said that lower rates of prostate cancer may have been due to less PSA screening, misinterpretation of PSA levels in patients on gender-affirming hormone therapies, stigma, lack of awareness of prostate cancer risk and the effects of estrogen.

“We still have a lot of work to do to determine optimal prostate cancer screening for transgender women on oestrogen and related treatments,” said co-senior author Matthew R. Cooperberg, MD, MPH, of the UCSF Department of Urology. “This study should be a reminder to clinicians and patients alike that, regardless of gender, people with prostates are at risk for prostate cancer.”

Source: University of California, San Francisco

Categories : CancerTags :

Western Diet Increases Prostate Cancer Risk

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A study published in BJU International found that while adherence to healthy diets seems to have no effect on prostate cancer risk, following an unhealthy ‘Western’ diet may increase the risk of developing aggressive prostate cancer.

The study assessed the diets of 15 296 men recruited in Spain in from 1992–1996. Among these men, 609 prostate cancer cases were identified during a median follow-up of 17 years. Diets were categorised as Western, Prudent, or Mediterranean. The Western dietary pattern consisted of a high intake of high-fat dairy products, processed meat, refined grains, sweets, caloric drinks, convenience food, and sauces, and a low intake of low-fat dairy products and whole grains. The Prudent dietary pattern was characterised by a high intake of low-fat dairy products, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and juices. The Mediterranean dietary pattern represented a high intake of fish, vegetables, legumes, boiled potatoes, fruits, olives, and vegetable oil, and a low intake of juices.

No effect over prostate cancer risk was detected for the Prudent and Mediterranean dietary patterns, but detrimental effect was observed with the Western dietary pattern. This effect was only observed for aggressive tumors.

“Our results indicate that avoiding unhealthy dietary habits could be the best nutritional strategy to prevent aggressive prostate cancer,” said lead author Adela Castelló-Pastor, PhD, of the Carlos III Institute of Health and CIBERESP, in Spain. “Substituting the intake of Western-type diet products by products characteristic of the Mediterranean diet could also decrease the risk of other chronic diseases,” added co–senior author Marina Pollán, PhD, of the Carlos III Institute of Health and CIBERESP, in Spain.

“The information provided by the Spanish cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition – or EPIC – has contributed to improving scientific knowledge of the relationship between diet and cancer and other chronic diseases,” added co–senior author Maria-José Sánchez, MD, PhD, lecturer at the Andalusian School of Public Health, scientific director at ibs.GRANADA and researcher at CIBERESP, in Spain.

Source: Wiley

Categories : Cancer Diet and NutritionTags :

‘Eating the Rainbow’ Found to Reduce Prostate Cancer Risk and Improve Treatment

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Photo by Brad West on Unsplash

New research by scientists at the University of South Australia suggests that consumption of colourful fruits and vegetables on a regular basis reduces the risk of a prostate cancer (PC) diagnosis. These foods, rich in micronutrients, also help speed up recovery from radiotherapy for the disease.

The findings, from two studies published in the journal Cancers, highlight the importance of a Mediterranean or Asian diet that includes these foods. For the first study, researchers compared micronutrient plasma concentrations of prostate cancer patients with a healthy control group, revealing low levels of lutein, lycopene, alpha-carotene, and selenium in PC patients and high levels of iron, sulphur, and calcium in the same group, relative to controls.

The second study found increased DNA damage after radiation exposure was also associated with low lycopene and selenium in blood plasma.

Men with plasma concentrations lower than 0.25ug/mL) for lycopene and/or lower than 120ug/L for selenium have an increased risk of prostate cancer and are likely to be more sensitive to the damaging effects of radiation.

Foods that are rich in lycopene include tomatoes, melons, papayas, grapes, peaches, watermelons, and cranberries. Selenium-rich foods include white meat, fish, shellfish, eggs, and nuts.

Study co-author Dr Permal Deo says that studies show that eating foods rich in lycopene and selenium is preferable to taking supplements, where the benefits are limited.

“Our recommendation is to adopt a Mediterranean diet enlisting the help of a dietician because people absorb nutrients in different ways, depending on the food, the digestive system, the person’s genotype and possibly their microbiome,” Dr Deo says.

Prostate cancer remains one of the most common and fatal cancers in men, but the nutritional deficiencies associated with it remain largely unknown, hence this study. Other risk factors, such as ethnicity, family history and age have previously been linked to prostate cancer.

“There is strong evidence that being overweight and tall increases the risk of prostate cancer. Diets high in dairy products and low in vitamin E may also increase the risk but the evidence is less clear.”

Source: University of South Australia

Categories : CancerTags :

Digital Rectal Exam is not Useful in Detecting Prostate Cancers Early

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Healthcare worker pulling on gloves
Image by Gustavo Fring on Pexels

A common method of detecting prostate cancer may not be accurate enough as a reliable screening tool by itself, scientists in Germany have warned. The digital rectal exam (DRE) is widely used by medical professionals to check the prostate gland with a finger for unusual swelling or lumps in the rectum as an initial check for the signs of prostate cancer in men.

But new research by scientists of the PROBASE trial coordinated at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) in Heidelberg, suggests the technique may be missing many cancers in their early stages.

The findings, presented at the European Association of Urology Annual Congress in Milan, could have implications for the early detection of prostate cancer, say the researchers. They are calling for other testing methods to be used in routine screening instead.

“One of the main reasons for screening for prostate cancer is to detect it in patients as early as possible as this can lead to better outcomes from treatment,” said Dr Agne Krilaviciute, a researcher at DKFZ and lead author of the study. “But our study suggests that the DRE is simply not sensitive enough to detect those early stage cancers.”

The PROBASE trial is a multicentre German prostate cancer screening study involving 46 495 men aged 45 years who were enrolled between 2014 and 2019. The men have since been had follow ups to assess their health in the years after the screening. Half of the participants in the trial were offered prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test immediately at age 45 while the other half were initially offered DRE with delayed PSA screening at age 50.

Ultimately, 6537 men in the delayed screening group underwent DRE and only 57 of these men were referred for a follow-up biopsy due to suspicious findings. Only three were found to have cancer.

When compared to the detection rate using other methods, such as a PSA test, the rate of detection using DRE was substantially lower, says Dr Krilaviciute.

“The DRE was giving a negative result in 99% of cases and even those that were deemed to be suspicious had a low detection rate,” says Dr Krilaviciute. “Results we’ve seen from the PROBASE trial show that PSA testing at the age of 45 detected four times more prostate cancers.”

The researchers believe one of the reasons why the DRE might be failing to detect cancers, particularly in younger men, is because the changes in the tissue in the prostate may be too slight to detect with a finger. In addition, some cancers occur in a part of the prostate that cannot be easily reached by a finger.

“Early stage cancer may not have the size and stiffness to be palpable,” said Professor Peter Albers, a urologist at Düsseldorf University who was the senior author of the study.

“Separate analysis that used MRI scans before biopsies to locate cancers in the prostate showed that about 80% of these are in an area that should be easy to reach with a finger and still cancers were not detectable by DRE.”

The researchers are now calling for widespread use of PSA testing and MRI scans as part of screening programmes instead of DRE.

“If the aim of a screening programme is to pick up cancers as early as possible and the current screening tool isn’t doing that job, then that is a fundamental failure of that approach,” said Professor Albers. “We speculate in our paper that not only is the DRE not useful for detecting cancer, but it may also be one reason why people don’t come to screening visits – the examination probably puts a lot of men off.

“In Germany, for example, the participation rate is less than 20% in the screening programme for men 45 to 50 years. If we were to offer PSA testing instead, more of them might be willing to come.”

Source: European Association of Urology

Categories : CancerTags :

Greater Precision with MRI-guided Prostate Cancer Radiotherapy

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Credit: Darryl Leja / National-Human-Genome Research Institute / National Institutes of Health

Men undergoing MRI-guided radiotherapy for localised prostate cancer, had fewer toxicities and better quality of life, according to new research published in JAMA Oncology. This was the first randomised phase III clinical trial to directly compare MRI-guided stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) with the same therapy guided by CT.

“MRI guidance offers several advantages over standard CT guidance, most notably the ability to dramatically reduce planning margins, providing more focused treatment with less injury to nearby normal tissues and organs,” said lead author Amar Kishan, MD, a radiation oncologist. “MRI technology is more costly than CT, both in terms of upfront equipment expenses and longer treatment times, which is one reason our study set out to determine if MRI-guided technology offers tangible benefits for patients.”

SBRT for prostate cancer usually delivers radiation in five or fewer precisely targeted doses. It is an established and generally well tolerated form of treatment, but it can cause toxicities resulting in urinary, bowel and sexual dysfunction. This UCLA-led clinical trial included 154 analysable patients with prostate cancer who were randomised to either a CT-guidance arm (76 patients) or an MRI-guidance arm (78 patients).

This study included assessment by both physicians and patients. From both perspectives, MRI-guided therapy was associated with fewer side effects and better quality of life over at least three months of follow-up.

“In this trial, we demonstrated that the reduction in treatment volumes facilitated by MRI guidance leads to a significant reduction in moderate physician-scored toxicity and to a reduction in the proportion of patients noting significant decrements in patient-reported outcome metrics in the near term,” said Dr Kishan. “Although additional studies will need to confirm these benefits over time, we’re hopeful that these results will lead to better outcomes for men with prostate cancer.”

The 2mm margin used with MRI-guidance in the trial is narrower than has been used in any previous large study. Unlike CT, MRI technology can monitor prostate motion directly, and it offers improved soft tissue contrast, improving the accuracy of alignment prior to radiation.

Source: University of California – Los Angeles Health Sciences

Categories : CancerTags :

Neuronal Molecule Drives Prostate Cancer Aggressiveness

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Cancer-associated fibroplasts surrounding a prostate tumour. Credit: Moscat and Diaz Meco labs

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death among American men. Now, researchers have discovered key molecular players that drive prostate cancer to progress into a highly aggressive form of the disease called neuroendocrine prostate cancer that currently has no effective treatment. The finding, published in in the journal Scientific Reports, opens new avenues to therapeutics to treat neuroendocrine prostate cancer.

“We have found novel pathways that promote neuroendocrine prostate cancer,” says senior author Lucia R. Languino, PhD, a professor in the department of Pharmacology, Physiology and Cancer Biology and director of the Genetics, Genomics, and Cancer Biology PhD Program at Thomas Jefferson University.

Most prostate cancers are a type of disease called prostate adenocarcinoma. Other types of prostate cancer, including neuroendocrine tumours, are rare. However, unlike prostate adenocarcinoma, neuroendocrine prostate cancer is very aggressive and can quickly spread to other parts of the body. Treatments that are effective for adenocarcinomas in the prostate do not work against neuroendocrine prostate cancers.

Adenocarcinoma prostate cancers can progress into neuroendocrine prostate cancer. Until now, how this transition occurs has been a mystery.

To better understand how neuroendocrine prostate cancer develops, Dr Languino and colleagues looked for biomarkers of the disease. In previous work, they discovered that a molecule known as aVb3 integrin is abundant in mice and humans with neuroendocrine prostate cancer, but missing in prostate adenocarcinoma.

To look for molecules unique to neuroendocrine prostate cancer, the researchers found that aVb3 integrin expression in prostate cancer cells bumped up the expression of a known marker of neuroendocrine prostate cancer and significantly increased the expression of a molecule called Nogo receptor 2 (NgR2).

The finding “was a big discovery,” Dr Languino says. That’s because NgR2 is a protein found in nerve cells, where it contributes to neuronal functions. It has never before been studied in cancer, of any kind.

Dr Languino and her colleagues wanted to find out what this molecule, a neuronal protein, is doing in cancer.

An initial experiment revealed that NgR2 binds the aVb3 integrin. The scientists also saw that in mice with neuroendocrine prostate tumors, aVb3 integrin and NgR2 were both present in the primary tumor and in cancerous lesions that had formed in the lungs of the animals. A follow-up experiment made it clear that both aVb3 integrin and NgR2 are necessary for neuroendocrine prostate cancers.

When Dr Languino and her team lowered the amount of NgR2 in neuroendocrine prostate cancer cells, neuroendocrine markers also decreased. The results suggest that NgR2 plays a role in the development of neuroendocrine prostate cancer. Lowering the amount of NgR2 also reduced the ability of cancer cells to grow and move, indicating that NgR2 may have a hand in cancer spreading to other parts of the body, in a process known as metastasis. Metastases are often what makes cancers fatal.

“These two molecules, aVb3 integrin and NgR2, seem to create a combination that is lethal,” Dr Languino says.

She and her colleagues are now looking for a molecule or antibody that would block the effect of NgR2, or the aVb3 integrin/NgR2 complex, to inhibit their ability to promote neuroendocrine prostate cancer growth and development, and make the cancer more susceptible to therapy.

Source: Thomas Jefferson University

Categories : Cancer Diet and NutritionTags :

Could More Fruit & Veg Help Male Sexual Health Issues?

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Banana
Photo by Mike Dorner on Unsplash

A systematic review has revealed that plant-based or plant-heavy diets may offer a level of protection against prostate cancer and other male sexual health issues according.

The analysis included 23 studies, 12 of which included prostate cancer, and suggested a link between a plant-based diet and reduced prostate cancer risk. Some evidence also suggested benefits for erectile dysfunction and benign prostate hyperplasia. The findings were reported at the Sexual Medicine Society of North America (SMSNA) annual meeting.

“Medicine has moved to a more holistic approach overall, and with that, more researchers have started to look into [the question of] ‘Can we use these plant-based diets to help manage and prevent conditions like prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction [ED], and benign prostate hyperplasia [BPH]?’ Nathan Feiertag, MD, a medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, told MedPage Today. “There were relatively few studies that we were able to find for this literature review, but that’s the current state.”

With the growing popularity of plant-based diets, studies have shown their benefits for patients with hypertension or diabetes. Dr Feirtag said that less is known about their effect on prostate cancer, ED and BPH.

Dr Feiertag told MedPage Today that “Urologists can maybe consider our review as an opportunity to incorporate or modify existing diet counselling for their patients, especially the ones who are eager to implement lifestyle changes, particularly as it pertains to prostate hyperplasia, ED, and prostate cancer.”

The review mostly consisted of cohort studies, along with cross-sectional studies, and a handful of randomised controlled trials. Studies included those on vegan diets, vegetarian diets, and plant-heavy diets, such as the Mediterranean diet. In a number small cohort studies, there was a significant decrease in prostate cancer velocity, though not sustained at six months, Dr Feiertag said.

Two of the five ED studies found a link between plant-based diets and improved International Index of Erectile Function scores, though one reported worsening scores. The two studies included on ED reported a reduced relative risk of ED for patients on plant-based diets. For BPH, five of six studies reported an inverse relationship between plant-based diets and developing BPH.

Limitations including not being generalisable due to the number of observational and cohort studies that relied on patient-reported evaluations of diet. Additional high-quality studies are needed to confirm the link between diet and urological conditions.

Fortunately, the studies all reported no non-association or no harmful effects of following a plant-based or plant-forward diet. “For the patients who want to change their diet, this is useful for them. It definitely won’t hurt,” Dr Feiertag told MedPage Today.

Source: MedPage Today

Categories : CancerTags :

Stopping Prostate Tumours from Evading Androgen Suppression Therapy

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Credit: Darryl Leja / National-Human-Genome Research Institute / National Institutes of Health

Researchers have identified an investigational therapeutic approach that could be effective against treatment-resistant prostate cancer. Results of the Phase II clinical trial performed by Cedars-Sinai Cancer investigators and published in Molecular Therapy, have led to a larger, multicentre trial that will soon be underway.

Cancer of the prostate is the second-leading cause of cancer-related death in men. Many prostate tumours are not aggressive and may require no or minimal treatment. Aggressive tumours are initially treated with surgery or radiation therapy.

In roughly a third of patients, the cancer comes back after initial treatment, said Neil Bhowmick, PhD, research scientist at Cedars-Sinai Cancer, professor of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and senior author of the study. Those patients are usually treated with medications that suppress the actions of testosterone and other androgens, which promote prostate tumour growth.

“Patients do really well until the tumour figures a way around the androgen-suppressing therapy,” Bhowmick said. “One way that it can do this is to cause cells to make only part of the protein that the drug binds to, rendering the drug useless. The partial proteins are called splice variants.”

Through research with human cells and laboratory mice, study first author Bethany Smith, PhD, figured out that the cancer cells were using a protein called CD105 to signal to the surrounding supportive cells to make these slice variant proteins. Investigators then conducted a trial in human patients to test a drug that they hoped would keep those partial proteins from forming by inhibiting CD105.

In the trial, 9 patients whose tumours were resistant to androgen-blocking therapy continued that therapy but were also given a CD105 inhibitor called carotuximab. Forty percent of those patients experienced progression-free survival, based on radiographic imaging.

“Every single one of the patients in our trial was totally resistant to at least one androgen suppressor, and the normal course of action would be to simply try a different one or chemotherapy, which research has shown generally doesn’t stop tumor growth for more than about three months,” Bhowmick said. “Carotuximab prevented the cancer’s workaround and made the tumor sensitive to androgen-suppressing therapy.”

Importantly, Bhowmick said, carotuximab also appears to prevent androgen receptor splice variants in the supporting cells surrounding tumours, further sensitising the tumour to the androgen suppressor.

“We found that this therapy may be able to, especially in early cancers, resensitize select patients to androgen suppression. This could allow patients to avoid or delay more toxic interventions such as cytotoxic chemotherapy,” said Edwin Posadas, MD, associate professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai and a co-author of the study. “We also hope to find ways of predicting which patients are most likely to benefit from this approach by testing blood and tissue samples using next-generation technologies housed at Cedars-Sinai Cancer.”

Study co-author Sungyong You, PhD, director of the Urologic Oncology Bioinformatics Group, pinpointed three biomarkers that could help indicate which patients will respond to this investigational therapy, and the team will validate those markers in a new clinical trial. This will allow future studies to target patients most likely to be helped by this intervention, Bhowmick said.

Source: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Categories : Cancer UrogenitalTags :

Focus on Urinary Problems Clouds Early Prostate Cancer Detection

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Credit: Darryl Leja / National-Human-Genome Research Institute / National Institutes of Health

Diagnoses of early, curable stages of prostate cancer are being missed because national guidelines and media health campaigns in the UK focus on urinary symptoms despite a lack of scientific evidence, according to University of Cambridge researchers.

Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in men. And while 78% of men diagnosed with this cancer survive for over ten years, this proportion has barely changed over the past decade in the UK, largely because the disease is detected at a relatively late stage. In England, for example, nearly half of all prostate cancers are picked up at stage three of four (stage four being the latest stage).

Despite no evidence of a link between urinary symptoms and prostate cancer, national guidelines, health advice and public health campaigns continue to promote this link. In a review published in BMC Medicine, Cambridge researchers argue that not only is this unhelpful, but it may even deter men from coming forward for early testing and detection of a potentially treatable cancer.

“When most people think of the symptoms of prostate cancer, they think of problems with peeing or needing to pee more frequently, particularly during the night,” said Vincent Gnanapragasam, Professor of Urology at the University of Cambridge. “This misperception has lasted for decades, despite very little evidence, and it’s potentially preventing us picking up cases at an early stage.”

Prostate enlargement can cause the urinary problems often included in public health messaging, but evidence suggests that this is rarely due to malignant prostate tumours. Rather, research suggests that the prostate is smaller in cases of prostate cancer.  A recent study – the UK PROTECT trial – even went as far as to say that a lack of urinary symptoms may in fact be an indicator of a higher likelihood of cancer.

Screening programmes are one way that cancers are often detected at an early stage, but in the case of prostate cancer, some argue that such programmes risk overwhelming health services and leading to men being treated for relatively benign disease.

Testing for prostate cancer involves a blood test that looks for a protein known as a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) that is made only by the prostate gland; however, it is not always accurate. PSA density is significantly more accurate than PSA alone in predicting a positive biopsy and is used in everyday clinical practice.

The researchers point to evidence that there is a misconception that prostate cancer is always symptomatic: a previous study found that 86% of the public associated prostate cancer with symptoms, but only 1% were aware that it could be asymptomatic.

“We urgently need to recognise that the information currently given to the public risks giving men a false sense of security if they don’t have any urinary symptoms,” said Prof Gnanapragasam.

“We need to emphasise that prostate cancer can be a silent or asymptomatic disease, particularly in its curable stages. Waiting out for urinary symptoms may mean missing opportunities to catch the disease when it’s treatable.

“Men shouldn’t be afraid to speak to their GP about getting tested, and about the value of a PSA test, especially if they have a history of prostate cancer in their family or have other risk factors such as being of Black or mixed Black ethnicity.”

The researchers say they are not advocating for an immediate screening programme, and acknowledge that changes in messaging could mean more men approaching their GPs for a PSA test, potentially resulting in unnecessary investigations and treatment. However, they argue that there are ways to reduce the risk of this happening. These include the use of algorithms to assess an individual’s risk and whether they need to be referred to a specialist, and for those who are referred, MRI scans could help rule out ‘indolent’ (mild) disease or negative findings, reducing the risks of an unnecessary biopsy.

“We’re calling on organisations such as the NHS, as well as patient charities and the media, to review the current public messaging,” said Prof Gnanapragasam.

“If men were aware that just because they have no symptoms doesn’t necessarily mean they are cancer free, then more might take up offers for tests. This could mean more tumours identified at an earlier stage and reduce the numbers of men experiencing late presentation with incurable disease.”

Source: University of Cambridge

Categories : Cancer Lab Tests and ImagingTags :

PET/CT Scans Fail to Beat MRI for Prostate Cancer Detection

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Credit: Darryl Leja / National-Human-Genome Research Institute / National Institutes of Health

Researchers found that MRI scans, the current gold standard, can still detect prostate cancer more accurately than the newer, prostate-specific -PSMA PET/CT scanning technique.

The findings were presented at the European Association of Urology’s annual congress (EAU22).

Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET/CT scans, approved by the US FDA in 2020, use a radioactive dye to highlight areas of PSMA, which is overexpressed on the surface of prostate cancer cells. Presently, these scans are used to manage prostate cancer, as they can accurately measure the progression or recurrence of the disease. The researchers set out to find if they could be used to diagnose prostate cancer as well.

The PEDAL trial recruited 240 patients at risk of prostate cancer, with each patient given both an MRI scan and a PSMA PET/CT scan. If imaging suggested the presence of prostate cancer, a biopsy was performed by the patient’s urologist.

The MRI scans picked up abnormalities in 141 patients, while the PSMA PET/CT scans picked up abnormalities in 198 patients. A total of 181 patients (75%) underwent a prostate biopsy, and subsequently 82 of those patients were found to have clinically significant prostate cancer.

The MRI scans were significantly more accurate at detecting any grade of prostate cancer than the PSMA PET scans.

The research team was led by Associate Professor Lih-Ming Wong, who explained: “Our analysis found that MRI scans were better than PSMA-PET for detecting any grade of prostate cancer. When we looked only at clinically significant prostate cancers, there was no difference in accuracy.  As this study is one of the first to explore using PSMA-PET to diagnose cancer within the prostate, we are still learning and adjusting how to improve using PSMA-PET in this setting.

Although detection thresholds will be  fine-tuned as diagnostic use develops,  Prof Wong believes the trial has important lessons for clinicians. 

He said: “This study confirms that the existing ‘gold standard’ of pre-biopsy detection – the MRI – is indeed a high benchmark. Even with fine-tuning, we suspect PSMA PET/CT won’t replace the MRI as the main method of prostate cancer detection. But it will likely have application in the future as an adjunct to the MRI, or for people for whom an MRI is unsuitable, or as a single combined “diagnostic and staging” scan for appropriately selected patients.”

Source: EurekAlert!