Dr. Taneja Discusses Imaging Techniques Used to Detect Metastatic 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.