Dear AuntMinnie member,
New therapies for metastatic prostate cancer historically have evolved through a pattern in which systemic agents are first established in the post-chemotherapy castration-resistant setting before advancing to earlier stages in the disease. That appears to be the case for Lu-177 PSMA-617 (Pluvicto, Novartis), and researchers recently pooled existing evidence on the therapy to see how it is progressing. Click here for more details.
Indeed, research in prostate cancer has been dominating our coverage. Here’s a sampling of studies we’ve covered since our last newsletter:
PET/MRI may offer a path toward diagnosing prostate cancer without biopsies, according to a team at the Technical University of Munich.
Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta found that PET/CT has a significant impact on clinical decision-making in men being considered for additional treatment after radical prostatectomy.
University of California, San Francisco, researchers tested a new tracer in men with the disease called zirconium-89 (Zr-89) DFO-YS5 and found it was well tolerated and demonstrated high tumor uptake.
In a study published June 10 in Lancet Oncology of a multicenter phase III trial (PRIMARY2), PSMA-PET halved the need for biopsies in men with suspected high-risk disease.
In Alzheimer’s disease research, we covered two studies investigating PET imaging with the new tau tracer F-18 MK-6240, which is pending approval at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In one, a group at the University of Pittsburgh found it outperformed F-18 flortaucipir; in the second, published July 16 in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, the tracer showed sensitivity to early signs of Alzheimer disease in cognitively healthy older adults.
In other brain PET imaging research, a team at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Ontario, followed up on earlier work showing inflammation in patients with long COVID and found that the inflammation appears to lead to injury to dopamine-releasing neurons.
Lastly, in case you missed it, check out our ShowCast Roundup of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging annual meeting held last month. Our number one story was the ever-popular Image of the Year.
For more molecular imaging news, be sure to check our Molecular Imaging content area regularly. And as always, if you have molecular imaging topics you'd like us to consider, please contact me.
Will Morton
Associate Editor
AuntMinnie.com
