News Release

For prostate cancer patients, 11C-Choline PET may be alternative to pelvic lymphadenectomy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging

Reston, VA – Detecting pelvic lymph node metastases is vital for prostate cancer patients because the five-year survival rate for these men decreases from 85% to 50% when the cancer spreads to the pelvic lymph nodes. Of the existing methods to stage pelvic lymph node tumors, the most accurate is pelvic lymphadenectomy, an invasive procedure that has a morbidity rate of 5%-7%.

Dutch doctors sought a pelvic lymph node staging technique that was less likely to involve complications (compared to lymphadenectomy) while also providing greater accuracy than other imaging procedures. Their research, published in the March 2003 issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, probed the effectiveness of 11C-Choline PET scans in detecting and staging these tumors.

Of the 67 prostate cancer patients who participated in the study, 15 had histologically proven pelvic lymph node tumors. Other imaging techniques, such as CT and MRI, can identify tumors that change the size or shape of the lymph nodes; however, tumors do not always have this effect. As a result, CT and MRI scans only detected the spread of the disease in 7 of 15 cases. 11C-Choline PET scans, by contrast, presented true positive results for 12 of the 15 cases.

As revealed in the research, I1C-Choline PET scans were not only more sensitive in detecting pelvic lymph node tumors but also effective in determining their development stage; the overall accuracy of 11C-Choline PET scans in this study was 93%. Clearly, this technique shows promise as a safe, non-invasive lymph node tumor staging method for prostate cancer patients.

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Preoperative Staging of Pelvic Lymph Nodes in Prostate Cancer by 11C-Choline PET was written by Igle J. de Jong, MD, PhD, Department of Urology and PET Center, Jan Pruim, PhD, Philip H. Elsinga, PhD, and William Vaalburg, PhD, of the PET Center, and Han J. Mensink, PhD, Department of Urology; all from Groningen University Hospital, Groningen, The Netherlands.

Copies of the article are available to media upon request to Kimberly A. Bennett. Copies of the current and past issues of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine are available online at jnm.snmjournals.org. Print copies can be obtained at $15 per copy by contacting the SNM Service Center, Society of Nuclear Medicine, 1850 Samuel Morse Drive, Reston, VA 20190-5315; phone: (703) 326-1186; fax: (703) 708-9015; e-mail: servicecenter@snm.org. A yearly subscription to the journal is $170. A journal subscription is a member benefit of the Society of Nuclear Medicine.

The Society of Nuclear Medicine is an international scientific and professional organization of more than 14,000 members dedicated to promoting the science, technology, and practical applications of nuclear medicine. The SNM is based in Reston, VA.


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