Breakthrough Treatment

Prostate Cancer Breakthrough

Look around at men working in your office, eating at your favorite restaurant, or cheering on their team at a ballgame. About one in seven of them will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. The disease is usually treated successfully but approximately one-third of patients experience a recurrence.

Until recently, detecting prostate cancer relapse was often a shot in the dark. Now, a breakthrough scan is sleuthing out the most elusive tumors- earlier, more accurately, and more cost effectively than anything before. It's called Axumin.

"The way we've been imaging and treating prostate cancer has not changed in well over a decade, maybe two or three decades," says Nishant Verma, M.D., a radiologist with Southwest Medical Imaging. "Axumin changed the game. It's a breakthrough."

After a man is treated for prostate cancer, he gets periodic PSA tests, which measure the prostate-specific antigen levels in his blood. Elevated amounts of this protein could mean the cancer is back.

Here's the rub, PSA tests do not indicate where the tumors are. They could be in the prostate area, lymph nodes, bones, or elsewhere. Conventional CT or bone scans can't find prostate cancer until the PSA level is extreme (10 - 30 -plus). So, physicians, not knowing where to aim, may prescribe body-wide treatments like chemotherapy or hormones, which can cause severe side effects.