A new partnership between Michigan State University (MSU) and McLaren Greater Lansing offers new technology that can find more relevant cancers and better identify patients who may need prostate cancer treatment.
“Prostate MR Fusion is an imaging modality which utilizes advanced MRI technology to help identify an area in the prostate where patients may have cancers,” said Raheel John, DO, a radiologist at MSU radiology.
The MR Fusion technology works in two steps. First, the patient will visit a MSU radiology location to have an MRI of the prostate performed. Then, the patient will be scheduled for a simple outpatient procedure with his urologist in which the MR Fusion technology will be used to fuse a real-time ultrasound image with the previously performed MRI of the prostate, allowing the physician to locate specific lesions that are concerning and to take biopsy tissue from the lesion identified.
“It will more accurately aid in diagnoses and may help prevent patients from having unnecessary biopsies and significantly improve the accuracy of biopsies,” said Eric Stockall, MD, a urologist with Capital Urological Associates, who used the MR Fusion technology when performing surgery to remove prostate cancer. “It is a significant advancement in our ability to diagnose and treat prostate cancer.”
Typically, men over the age of 50 with a life expectancy of 10 years or more receive a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screen. The prostate is a sponge-like gland; if there is any pressure on the prostate, it will excrete PSA. It is normal for a man’s PSA level to rise somewhat as he gets older; however, cancer in the prostate also increases excretion of PSA, causing an elevated test result.
“The MR Fusion technology should be offered to patients who have undergone previous prostate biopsies that failed to show prostate cancer, but their PSA is still rising, and doctors suspect a cancer might be present,” said Rafid Yousif, MD, Lansing Institute of Urology. “The goal of this new technology is to detect aggressive prostate cancers accurately.”
Source: Press Release
