New Imaging Modalities

The recent expansion of therapeutic options for prostate cancer raises the need for improved imaging for diagnosis and therapy response assessment of prostate cancer, especially for metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer. Currently available and emerging non-invasive molecular imaging techniques promise to play an important role as applied to risk adapted patient-specific therapy and drug development for prostate cancer care in the future. Positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracers beyond 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) for prostate cancer include 18F-Sodium Fluoride, 11C-Choline and 18F-Fluorocholine and 11C-Acetate. Other emerging and promising PET radiotracers include a synthetic l-leucine amino acid analog (anti-18F-FACBC), dihydrotestosterone analog (18F-FDHT), and prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-based PET radiotracers (e.g., 18F-DCFBC, 89Zr-DFO-J591, 68Ga(HBED-CC)). Modern MRI techniques in prostate cancer imaging apply the principles of multiparametric MRI (mMRI) utilizing morphological imaging (T1-weighted and T2-weighted) and functional imaging (diffusion-weighted (DW), dynamic contrast-enhanced perfusion, and spectroscopy).