At the recent 2021 AUA (American Urological Association) virtual congress in USA, our research fellow Dr Will Gondoputro presented preliminary results from the DETECT trial. This is a world-first trial being conducted in partnership with world-renowned insitutes in Prostate cancer surgery and research, i.e. NKI Amsterdam & Martini Klinik Hamburg.
In this study, men undergoing robotic surgery to remove the prostate and lymph glands (for aggressive or ‘high risk’ prostate cancer) have a revolutionary new type of scan before surgery called a ‘PSMA-PET’ scan, which is able to detect tiny spots (a few millimetres in diameter) of prostate cancer in the lymph nodes, spots which are too small to be seen and were thus missed by traditional staging scans (bone scan, MRI and CT).
Just prior to robotic surgery, men then undergo an intravenous injection of PSMA attached to a radioactive tracer called Technetium, then at the time of surgery a robotic probe called a gamma probe is used to scan the pelvis for any lymph nodes that contain microscopic cancer spots, because they give off a radio-active signal via the Tc-PSMA particle which can be detected by the gamma probe. These cancer-containing lymph nodes can then be removed surgically.
The early results of this world-first study using this revolutionary technology suggest that we can improve the chance of cure with surgery by being better able to find cancerous lymph nodes and by being able to reduce the risk of a ‘positive surgical margin’ by detecting microscopic cancer left at the site of prostate removal. This residual tissue can then be removed, ensuring ‘clear margins’, that is improving the likelihood that ‘we got it all’ and cured the patient. This in turn may reduce the likelihood of cancer recurrence in the pelvis and thus of needing radiotherapy, hormone therapy, chemotherapy etc later down the track.
stay tuned for further results as the study continues. We hope to publish our preliminary results soon and ultimately the final results of the multicentre trial once complete.
see a link to the published abstract below:
https://twitter.com/drjamesethomps1/status/1449677002433122308?s=21