A PET/CT imaging agent designed to visualize prostate cancer was used in the first patient in a Phase 3 clinical trial recently with positive results.
The imaging agent “demonstrated excellent positive and negative predictive values in detecting the presence or absence of prostate cancer,” said Lawrence Saperstein, MD, assistant professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and chief of Nuclear Medicine at Yale School of Medicine. The study results have the potential to provide men with a biomedical recurrence of prostate cancer with earlier diagnoses and more informed treatment decisions, added Saperstein, Yale’s principal investigator of the trial.
The goal of the study is to enroll about 200 patients with biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer in the United States and Canada. Biochemical recurrence is a rise in the blood level of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in prostate cancer patients after treatment with surgery or radiation. Biochemical recurrence may occur in patients who do not have symptoms.
The study results have the potential to provide men with a biomedical recurrence of prostate cancer with earlier diagnoses and more informed treatment decisions.
Lawrence Saperstein, MD
The imaging agent may allow physicians to detect very small lesions that are currently missed with conventional imaging methods, changing the treatment path for patients. The imaging agent enables the visualization of bone and soft tissue metastases to determine the presence or absence of recurrent or metastatic prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is the second most common form of cancer affecting men in the U.S. An estimated one in seven men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime