Contrast Enhanced Prostate Cancer Detection

Ultrasound contrast is in the headlines again.  This time it has been used to determine which prostate masses are most likely to be aggressive cancers. This research recently carried out at Thomas Jefferson is significant in that it may lower the number of diagnostic needle biopsies of prostate masses by weeding out low suspicion masses.  Currently, 12 or more individual biopsies are carried out per procedure when doctors suspect prostate cancer.  This may lower the total number of biopsies per patient per procedure as the highly vascular contrast enhanced suspicious lesions can be seen much better with the intravenous micro-bubbles.






"Today, a physician may sample 12 to 18 tissue cores from the prostate in order to help diagnose a patient. But with contrast-enhanced, that number drops to six or even less," says lead author Ethan Halpern, M.D. (insert link into full name: http://www.jeffersonhospital.org/Healthcare%20Professionals/Ethan-J-Halpern.aspx), co-director of the Prostate Diagnostic Center Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and professor of Radiology and Urology at Thomas Jefferson University. "So it's less invasive, and a more effective guidance tool. We've found that with contrast-enhanced ultrasound, we are much more likely to detect cancers on the image, and in this case, the higher grades."


Thanks Science Newsline

http://www.sciencenewsline.com/articles/2012092719120046.html