Samir Taneja, MD, James M. Neissa and Janet Riha Neissa professor of urologic oncology, vice chair, Department of Urology, professor, Department of Radiology, co-director, Smilow Comprehensive Prostate Cancer Center, director, Urologic Oncology, Genito-Urologic program leader, NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, discusses multiparametric MRI in prostate cancer.

The advent of multiparametric MRI has allowed radiation oncologists to use different functional sequences to better assess the prostate and determine the severity of the cancer. In an additional effort to better image the prostate, Taneja says that pre-biopsy MRI is an innovative technique used at NYU Langone. This technique provides the opportunity to better monitor the disease than with fewer biopsies.

More precise imaging techniques allow physicians to better diagnose, risk-assess, localize, and choose treatments for prostate cancer more accurately. Prior data published in the 

 showed that MRI-guided biopsies were 3 times as likely to identify cancer compared with traditional biopsies. This has resulted in a reduction of side effects for many patients whose cancer is lower-risk, as imaging can spare them from conventional therapy.

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Samir Taneja, MD, James M. Neissa and Janet Riha Neissa professor of urologic oncology, vice chair, Department of Urology, professor, Department of Radiology, co-director, Smilow Comprehensive Prostate Cancer Center, director, Urologic Oncology, Genito-Urologic program leader, NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, discusses multiparametric MRI in prostate cancer.
 

Dr. Taneja Discusses Multiparametric MRI in Prostate Cancer

Samir Taneja, MD, James M. Neissa and Janet Riha Neissa professor of urologic oncology, vice chair, Department of Urology, professor, Department of Radiology, co-director, Smilow Comprehensive Prostate Cancer Center, director, Urologic Oncology, Genito-Urologic program leader, NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, discusses a number of emerging imaging techniques used to stage prostate cancer.

Using MRI, doctors determine whether or not something in the MRI, some quantitative signal, gives a sense of which cancers are at risk for metastasis. There can be quantitative metrics of diffusion that can be measured to help. Taneja predicts the combination of MRI signal with genetic findings in the sampled tissue to create what would be called a radio-genomic that may be able to predict who is at risk. However, this is still in development.

More tangible advances in molecular imaging include PET fusion with MRI or CT. This fusion will direct PET signals to areas that will help identify oligometastatic disease. This may help identify the extent of metastatic disease at much lower prostate-specific antigen levels than in the past.

Dr. Taneja Discusses Imaging Techniques Used to Detect Metastatic Prostate Cancer

Samir Taneja, MD, professor of Urology and Radiology and director of the Division of Urologic Oncology at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Over detection is a significant problem in prostate cancer, says Taneja. The standard detection-method has typically been a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test, and, if abnormal, to a prostate biopsy. Cancers that are slow growing are often found this way, which can result in treating and generating secondary side effects inpatients that wouldn’t have died had their disease remained undetected. 

An MRI offers a more targeted detection method done in several sequences. Using those sequences together increases the accuracy of the MRI and reduces the number of false positives.

Samir Taneja, MD

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Dr. Taneja Discusses Multiparametric MRI in Prostate Cancer

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