PET Technique Enhances Cancer Monitoring
Posted by Main Blog on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008
by: Lettuce Wrap
A new positron emission tomography technique could provide early detection of prostate cancer spread to nearby lymph nodes, allowing opportunities to treat the cancer before it spreads to distant organs.
Prostate cancer spread to the pelvic lymph nodes is an important prognostic indicator, suggesting disease recurrence and progression. Detecting spread to the lymph nodes is critical for treatment planning. However, small cancer metastases in the pelvic lymph nodes are very difficult to find using conventional imaging tools such as computed tomography.
Researchers at the University of CA in Los Angeles developed a new method for detecting prostate cancer spread to the lymph nodes by engineering a virus that travels to the cancer and delivers its payload of proteins there. The proteins are visible on PET scans.
This helps to improve the prognosis for these patients by letting us find and treat these metastases early.
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