A new drug for imaging cancer in soft tissues and detecting it in early stages

A new study demonstrates the potential inherent in a state-of-the-art molecular imaging drug capable of detecting prostate cancer growth in soft tissues, lymph nodes and bones in its early stages

[Translation by Dr. Nachmani Moshe]
A new study demonstrates the potential inherent in a state-of-the-art molecular imaging drug capable of detecting prostate cancer growth in soft tissues, lymph nodes and bones in its early stages.

The study, published in the scientific journal The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, compares the biodistribution and kinetics of two drugs using planar imaging. Prostate cancer is the most diagnosed cancer in the US, and is the second leading cause of death for men in the US, after lung cancer. The experts in the field predict that 233,000 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in the US in 2014, and that approximately 29,000 of the patients will die. There are about 2 million men living with prostate cancer in the USA today.

The researchers examined the pharmacokinetics, biodistribution and absorption rate of two new drugs among 6 healthy men and 6 men diagnosed with prostate cancer. Photographs of the whole body were taken after 10 minutes, and after one hour, two hours as well as 4 and 24 hours from the time of drug injection. Until this study, there was no radiological material for medical purposes capable of exclusively and selectively diagnosing prostate cancer in soft tissues, lymph nodes and bones.

"The study presents an innovative imaging technology for diagnosing prostate cancer, a technology that provides doctors with a sensitive and selective tool for characterizing this type of cancer," notes lead researcher Shankar Vallabhajosula.

For the majority of the subjects, a good match was obtained compared to bone scans, although in general, many more lesions were observed with the help of the images of the new drugs than with bone scans, a finding that suggests that the drugs could be much more sensitive in detecting tumors in the skeleton or bone marrow and at an earlier stage than with the help of bone scans.

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