New Imaging Technique To Measure The Effectiveness Of Treatment For Prostate
Cancer
Main Category: Prostate / Prostate Cancer News
Article Date: 19 Apr 2007 - 10:00 PDT
Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have
identified a new imaging technique that can measure the effectiveness of
treatment for prostate cancer that has spread to the bones. The technique
involves measuring diffusion of water within tumors.
"Currently, we have no way of detecting bone tumor response to therapy, even
with all of the imaging options we have available. The magnitude of this
problem is huge - as many as 500,000 people in the United States have
metastatic breast or prostate cancer to the bone," says study author Brian
D. Ross, Ph.D., professor of radiology and biological chemistry at the U-M
Medical School and co-director of the Molecular Imaging Program at the U-M
Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Results of the study, which was done in mice, appear in Cancer Research.
The imaging technique, called a functional diffusion map, uses a magnetic
resonance imaging scan and special software to track the diffusion, or
movement, of water through the cells. Researchers mapped the changes in
diffusion over the course of treatment. The tumor cells slow the movement of
water, so as those cells die, water diffusion increases.
Researchers studied metastatic prostate cancer in mice; half the mice were
given chemotherapy to treat the cancer, which was in the bones, while the
remaining mice served as an untreated control group. Researchers performed
an MRI of bone tumors to collect diffusion data. A functional diffusion map
analysis found the mice that did not receive treatment had little or no
change in water diffusion, while the treated mice had progressively
increasing changes in the functional diffusion map over the three weeks of
treatment. Researchers could identify a statistically significant change in
diffusion as early as seven days after treatment began.
At the end of the study, the researchers removed the tumors and found the
functional diffusion map predicted the tumors' response to treatment. Tumors
or portions of a tumor that had appeared not to change on the functional
diffusion map had not responded to treatment. At the same time, the map
accurately predicted which cells were responsive to the chemotherapy.
"The functional diffusion map could serve as an early biomarker indicating
that a tumor is responding to treatment. This could allow patients to switch
to an alternative therapy without wasting time on a treatment that is not
working," says study author Kenneth Pienta, M.D., professor of internal
medicine and urology and director of the Urologic Oncology Program at the
U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The American Cancer Society estimates 218,890 men will be diagnosed with
prostate cancer this year and 27,050 will die from the disease.
Ross and his colleagues have previously studied the functional diffusion map
in people with brain tumors and have found the test can identify after only
three weeks of treatment - more than two months earlier than traditional
tests - which patients are responding to chemotherapy or radiation.
###
The functional diffusion map technology is not currently being used in the
clinic for prostate cancer. For information on currently available treatment
options for prostate cancer visit
http://www.mcancer.org/.
For more information, contact Kara Gavin
In addition to Ross, study authors were Kuei Lee, Ph.D., postdoctoral
fellow; Sudha Sud, research associate; Charles Meyer, Ph.D., professor of
radiology; Bradford Moffat, Ph.D., assistant professor of radiology; Thomas
Chenevert, Ph.D., professor of radiology; Alnawaz Rehemtulla, Ph.D.,
professor of radiation oncology and environmental health sciences; and
Kenneth Pienta, M.D., professor of urology and internal medicine.
Funding for the study was from the National Institutes of Health.
The University of Michigan holds a patent on this MRI diffusion technology
and has licensed the commercialization rights to ImBio, LLC of Ann Arbor, in
which Ross and Rehemtulla have a financial interest. A diffusion MRI can be
performed on a standard MRI machine using a special workstation to compute
the diffusion map. A workstation, I-ResponseTM has been developed by Cedara
Software Corp. of Ontario, Canada, a division of Merge Healthcare. Ross,
Rehemtulla and Chenevert, as inventors of this technology, would stand to
benefit financially from any commercial products.
Reference: Cancer Research, Vol. 67, No. 8, April 15, 2007
Contact: Nicole Fawcett
University of Michigan Health System
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PSA 16 10/17/2000 @ 46
Biopsy 11/01/2000 G7 (3+4), T2c
RRP 12/15/2000 G7 (3+4), T3cN0M0 Neg margins
PSA <.1 <.1 <.1 .27 .37 .75 PSAD 0.19 years
EBRT 05-07/2002 @ 47
PSA .34 .22 .15 .21 .32 PSAD .056 years
Lupron 07/03 (1 mo) 8/03 and every 4 months there after
PSA .07 .05 .06 .09 .08 .132 .145 PSAD 1.4 years
Casodex added daily 07/06
PSA <0.04, <0.05
Non Illegitimi Carborundum
New Imaging for Bone Cancer 
Linear Mode
