Written by Steve Sandstrom, SIU School of Medicine
Metastatic prostate cancer is the second deadliest cancer among US men, behind lung cancer.
It’s an unfortunate irony: the small gland that allows a man to create life can sometimes lead to his own demise.
Once a man has passed his reproductive prime, the prostate has the potential to become a different kind of loaded weapon. To the SIU School of Medicine urology team, the goal is to catch prostate problems early, and a new method of diagnosing this disease is now being offered to patients.
MRI vs. ultrasound
MRI’s might be better than the current standard – ultrasound – which can‘t tell whether a lesion on the organ is cancerous as it randomly samples a portion of the prostate. SIU’s urology team is now using an MRI on the prostate. An MRI can provide very clear soft-tissue details of the prostate, revealing lesions that the physicians can accurately target for a biopsy.
St. John’s Hospital is partnering with SIU School of Medicine to provide this specialized imaging in Springfield. Dr. Shaheen Alanee is head of urologic cancer care at SIU. He is using the MRI protocols designed by a team of physician collaborators at Centre Hospitalier Regionale University in Lille, France and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. St. John’s radiologists Dr. Vincent Zata and Dr. Theodore Gleason measure the lesion and grade its likelihood of being cancerous with a much higher degree of certainty than can be done using other techniques. Dr. Alanee then uses the MRI images to target suspicious areas for the biopsy needle.
The benefits
This new, more accurate, less invasive technology gives men with rising PSAs and previous negative biopsies better information to address their concerns.
“There is increasing evidence that using an MRI before a biopsy can accurately identify patients who require immediate biopsies and those who could be deferred,” Dr. Alanee says. “Our findings are already detecting cancer in areas a biopsy did not.”
“The potential of MRI in prostate cancer detection and management seems unlimited,” Dr. Zata says. “As the technology develops, more uses for MRI are being identified. Someday soon we may be able to substitute prostate biopsy with a combination of blood tests and MRI imaging and save our patients the discomfort of an invasive procedure.”
Read more about how SIU School of Medicine is treating men with prostate cancer in aspects.
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