Discovering Recurrent Prostate Cancer Earlier

Despite advances in treating and curing prostate cancer, the disease recurs and spreads in some men. 现在, 皇冠app offers the latest technique for detecting the disease for those patients — a technique typically only available at major urban medical centers.

从历史上看, if doctors suspected prostate cancer had returned in men previously treated for the disease, patients underwent bone scans and CAT scans to determine if the cancer had recurred and if it had metastasized, or spread to other areas of their body. The distinction is crucial in determining the appropriate treatment.

传统的PET扫描, which are more sensitive than bone or CAT scans, are useful in identifying other types of cancers, but not as helpful in detecting prostate cancer. 现在, a PET scan using a new identifying element, 仅在过去一年内有效, enables doctors at 皇冠app to identify metastatic prostate cancer at a much earlier stage and begin treatment much sooner.

“皇冠app有CAT扫描和骨骼扫描, 哪些仍然是治疗标准, but we now have something that is even better,博士说. Amichai Kilchevsky of 皇冠app Center for Urologic Care. “We can do one test and accomplish what two tests were doing in a more efficient and more accurate manner.”

The enhanced PET scan uses a liquid chemical called a nuclear tracer that is absorbed by prostate cancer cells that may have spread anywhere in the body. The absorbed tracer essentially glows on scan image, pinpointing any prostate cancer sites.

“Very few institutions perform this test because it requires a lot of coordination by the urologist, the medical oncologist and a radiologist who is specially trained to read nuclear medicine tests,“博士说. Kilchevsky.

“We are unique for our type of practice being able to offer this here, 在大城市之外,”他说. “这是一个相当惊人的成就.”

The test is important because confirming or ruling out whether the disease has spread determines whether treatment will focus on the prostate alone or address metastatic disease earlier than in the past.

“The bottom line is that the more information we have about a patient’s cancer status, the better decision we can make in terms of how to guide that patient through what could be a very complicated decision,” Dr. Kilchevsky说.

专家泌尿科护理接近家庭

In addition to its office on 皇冠app’s campus, the Center’s board-certified urologists practice in New London, 普利茅斯, 和沃尔夫伯勒, making it convenient for you to be seen close to home no matter where you live in Central New Hampshire.