AUA 2018: Evaluation of Gallium-68 PSMA PET/CT Imaging in Individuals with Biochemical Recurrence Following Radical Prostatectomy

San Francisco, CA (UroToday.com)  Ga-68 PSMA PET is growingly seen as one of the most important breakthroughs in prostate cancer imaging over the past decade. Its ability to detect metastatic disease that was previously invisible to conventional CT and bone scan imaging makes it a very attractive imaging modality for both clinical and research use. 

The author of this poster aimed to map the diagnostic metrics of PSMA PET in men with high risk prostate cancer who relapse after radical prostatectomy. This is important because of the need to know if we are moving the needle by aggressive local therapy. Evidence shows that salvage radiation, for example, is useful for relapses following prostatectomy, but is more effective when performed at lower PSAs. Therefore, having a modality that can detect metastatic disease at low PSA thresholds would help sort patients in this category who would or would not benefit from further local therapy.

391 patients were retrospectively identified from a single institution. As expected, the PSMA-PET detection rate rose as PSA rose. The detection rate at a PSA <0.2ng/ml was 42%, which went up as high as 92% for a PSA >2.0ng/ml (see tables). The also documented which metastatic sites were likely to be identified based on PSA levels.

UroToday AUA2018 DetectionRates of PSMA PET

UroToday AUA2018 Regions of detection PSMA PET

This is a large patient cohort undergoing PSMA-PET for this specific purpose, and it is a helpful study for us to start to understand the abilities and limitations of this imaging modality. Hopefully, this information can be used in a rational way to help power future studies using this modality.


Presented by: Yuigi Yuminaga, Kingswood, Australia
Co-Authors: Chris Rothe, Kieran Beattie, Mohan Arianayagam, Bertram Canagasingham, Richard Ferguson, Mohamed Khadra, Raymond Ko, Ken Le, Sunny Nalavenkata, Celi Varol, Matthew Winter, Kingswood, Australia

Written by: Shreyas Joshi, MD, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA, @ssjoshimd at the 2018 AUA Annual Meeting - May 18 - 21, 2018 – San Francisco, CA USA