Conferences

AMA 2024: Updates on Legislation Related Policy Adopted at the AMA 2024 Annual Meeting

(UroToday.com) The House of Delegates (HOD) convened at the American Medical Association (AMA) Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, in June 2024. During the HOD, voting members of the legislative body of the organization deliberated, debated, and cast votes to finalize the healthcare policies that the organization would implement as official guidelines. A variety of important new policies related to urology and medical legislation were considered and passed.

AMA 2024: Updates on Science and Technology Related Policy Adopted at the AMA 2024 Annual Meeting

(UroToday.com) In June 2024, the House of Delegates (HOD) met during the American Medical Association (AMA) Annual Meeting, where they engage in discussions, debates, and voting processes to determine the healthcare policies that the organization will adopt as official directives. Within Reference Committee E, which is focused on science and technology-related issues, several new policies relevant to urology were adopted.

AMA 2024: Updates on Medical Practice Related Policy Adopted at the AMA 2024 Annual Meeting

(UroToday.com) During the 2024 American Medical Association (AMA) Annual Meeting, the House of Delegates (HOD) convened to discuss, debate, and vote on healthcare policy that the organization will adopt as official directives. The HOD included a reference committee on Medical Practice related policy. Several reports and policies are of significance to urologists and urology patients. The Board of Trustees of the AMA presented a report entitled, "Transparency and Accountability of Hospitals and Hospital Systems” which called for transparent reporting of final determinations of physician complaints against hospitals and health systems through publicly accessible channels, such as the Joint Commission Quality Check reports. The AMA also announced that they plan to develop educational materials on the peer review process and advocate on behalf of doctors who have been subjected to bad-faith peer reviews. This will include information on what constitutes a bad-faith peer review and the options available to physicians navigating the peer review process.

ASCO 2024: Validation of a Digital Pathology-Based Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Model in Oligometastatic Castration-Sensitive Prostate Cancer, Including in Patients from the STOMP and ORIOLE Phase II Randomized Clinical Trials

(UroToday.com) The 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Philip Sutera discussing the validation of a digital pathology-based multimodal artificial intelligence model in oligometastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (CSPC). Oligometastatic CSPC is a state of limited metastatic disease, and randomized trials have demonstrated improvements in progression-free survival in patients with oligometastatic CSPC treated with metastasis-directed therapy. However, clinical outcomes remain heterogeneous and response to metastasis-directed therapy is variable, raising the need for prognostic/predictive biomarkers. A multimodal artificial intelligence biomarker (ArteraAI Prostate Test) was recently trained using data from patients with localized prostate cancer and found to be prognostic.1,2 The multimodal architecture is composed of two parts: (i) a tower stack to parse a variable number of digital histopathology slides, and (ii) another tower stack to merge the resultant features and predict binary outcomes:

SNMMI 2024: Registrational Trials for PSMA PET

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and the Barry Siegel Award Lecture presentation by Dr. Steven Rowe discussing registrational trials for PSMA PET. Dr. Rowe started his presentation highlighting that PSMA is a transmembrane carboxypeptidase highly expressed on prostate cancer cells with frequent expression observed in prostate cancer tumors. Furthermore, there has been direct correlation between expression levels and tumor aggressive. What we know so far about PSMA PET is that it has (i) moderate sensitivity and very high specificity for preoperative nodal staging, (ii) high detection efficiency for sites of biochemical recurrence, and (iii) effective for guiding focal therapy and selecting patients for PSMA-based therapeutic molecules. 18F-DCFPyL in high risk prostate cancer patients can have vastly different staging results:

SNMMI 2024: Prognostic Value of Post-Therapy SPECT/CT Imaging in Patients Undergoing 177Lu-PSMA-617 Radioligand Therapy: Results from 3 Clinical Trials

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Raghava Karri discussing the prognostic value of post-therapy SPECT/CT imaging in patients undergoing 177Lu-PSMA-617 (Lu-PSMA) radioligand therapy. Despite established efficacy of Lu-PSMA, as evidenced by the TheraP1 and VISION2 trials, there remains a notable gap in understanding the utility of post-therapy imaging. At the 2024 SNMMI annual meeting, Dr. Karri and colleagues reviewed changes on post-therapy SPECT/CT as a prognostic biomarker compared to PSA and conventional prognostic parameters in three clinical trials. 

SNMMI 2024: PSMA PET/CT Radiomics: Assessment of Adverse Pathological Risk and Proteomic Biomarker Correlations in Prostate Cancer

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Yongxiang Tang discussing an assessment of adverse pathological risk and proteomic biomarker correlations in prostate cancer.

SNMMI 2024: Development of a Visually Calculated SUVmean (HIT Score) on Screening PSMA PET/CT to Predict Treatment Response to 177Lu PSMA Therapy: Comparison to Quantitative SUVmean and Patient Outcomes

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Mina Swiha discussing the development of a visually calculated SUVmean (HIT Score) on screening PSMA PET/CT to predict treatment response to 177Lu PSMA therapy. 177Lu-PSMA is an effective treatment in patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer, and SUVmean is a valuable screening biomarker to assess suitability for 177Lu-PSMA therapy but requires quantitative software. This study aimed to develop a simple clinically applicable PSMA-PET score that encompasses the elements of SUVmean, without requiring additional quantification.

SNMMI 2024: 18F-DCFPyL PET/MRI Radiomics for Intraprostatic Prostate Cancer Detection and Metastases Prediction Using Whole-Gland Segmentation

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer and a presentation by Dr. Seyed Ali Mirshahvalad discussing 18F-DCFPyL PET/MRI radiomics for intraprostatic prostate cancer detection and metastases prediction using whole-gland segmentation. The aim of this study presented at SNMMI 2024 was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of combined 18F-DCFPyL PET/MRI whole-gland-derived radiomics for detecting clinically significant prostate cancer (ISUP Gleason Grade ≥ 2) and predicting nodal and distant metastases in therapy-naïve patients.

SNMMI 2024: Comparison of Post-Therapy 4 and 24-hour 177Lu-PSMA SPECT/CT and Pre-Therapy PSMA PET/CT in Assessment of Disease in Men with Metastatic Castrate-Resistant Prostate Cancer

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Mina Swiha discussing a comparison of post-therapy 4 and 24-hour 177Lu-PSMA SPECT/CT and pre-therapy PSMA PET/CT in assessment of disease in men with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer.

SNMMI 2024: 68Ga-P16-093 Diagnostic Performance in Newly Diagnosed Prostate Cancer- Histopathologic Correlation

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Jiarou Wang discussing the diagnostic performance of 68Ga-P16-093 in newly diagnosed prostate cancer. 68Ga-P16-093 is a novel PSMA-targeted radiopharmaceutical that has a labeling reaction compatible with various Ge/Ga generators and has a simple labeling method of heating at 95 degrees Celsius for 5 minutes, leading to high radiochemical purity. As a targeting agent in prostate cancer patients, 68Ga-P16-093 has the following compared to 68Ga-PSMA:

SNMMI 2024: Determining the Simplified Quantification Method of [18FAlF-P16-093 for Patients with Primary Prostate Cancer

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Tao Sun discussing the simplified quantification method of [18F]AlF-P16-093 for patients with primary prostate cancer. This work presents the optimization of pharmacokinetic modeling for a new tracer, [18F]AlF-P16-093, for in-vivo prostate cancer imaging.

SNMMI 2024: Eligibility for PSMA-RLT Based on Dual FDG/PSMA-PET: A Subanalysis of the 3TMPO Study

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Jean-Mathieu Beauregard discussing a sub-analysis of the 3TMPO study assessing eligibility for PSMA radioligand therapy based on dual FDG/PSMA-PET. Eligibility criteria for PSMA radioligand therapy are currently debated, particularly with respect to the role of FDG-PET in patient selection.

SNMMI 2024: COBRA: Assessment of Safety and Efficacy of 64Cu-SAR-bisPSMA in Patients with Biochemical Recurrence of Prostate Cancer Following Definitive Therapy

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Luke Nordquist discussing the results of COBRA, an assessment of the safety and efficacy of 64Cu-SAR-bisPSMA in patients with biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer following definitive therapy. Between 20-40% of patients with prostate cancer will relapse within 10 years of their primary prostate cancer treatment, as identified by increasing PSA levels. Most relapses will occur within 5 years after definitive therapy, thus early diagnosis of biochemical recurrence with accurate staging is essential to inform the best treatment strategy. Over the last several years, PSMA has been used as an imaging target in prostate cancer.

SNMMI 2024: Non-PSMA Targets for Prostate Cancer Radiopharmaceutical Therapies

(UroToday.com) The Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) 2024 Annual Meeting held in Toronto, ON between June 8th and June 11th, 2024 was host to a prostate cancer novel approaches and combination therapies session. Dr. Hossein Jadvar discussed non-PSMA targets for prostate cancer radiopharmaceutical therapies, including:

SNMMI 2024: VIOLET: Radiation Absorbed Dose in Patients with Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer Treated with 161Tb-PSMA-I&T

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. James Buteau discussing radiation absorbed dose in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer treated with 161Tb-PSMA-I&T. 177Lu-PSMA is a proven therapy for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Terbium-161 attaches to PSMA receptors and emits beta-particles similar to 177Lu-PSMA, killing larger-sized tumors with abundant crossfire:

SNMMI 2024: Dosimetry and Pilot Therapy Study of Novel PSMA-Targeting Agents, 177Lu-P17-087 and 177Lu-P17-088, in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer Patients

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Linlin Li discussing the dosimetry and pilot therapy study of novel PSMA-targeting agents, 177Lu-P17-087 and 177Lu-P17-088, in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer patients. PSMA is a promising target for diagnosis and radioligand therapy of prostate cancer. Biodistribution and dosimetry of two novel PSMA-targeting radionuclide therapy agents, 177Lu-P17-087, and its albumin binder-modified derivative, 177Lu-P17-088, were evaluated in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer patients:

SNMMI 2024: Preclinical and First-in-Human Studies of Dansylated Amino Acid Modified Long-Acting PSMA Derivative 68Ga/177Lu-LNC1011

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting featured a session on prostate cancer, and a presentation by Dr. Jiarou Wang discussing preclinical and first-in-human studies of dansylated amino acid-modified long-acting PSMA derivative 68Ga/177Lu-LNC1011. 177Lu-PSMA-617 has inadequate uptake and retention in tumors and poor diagnostic efficacy:

SNMMI 2024: Combination Treatment of Prostate Cancer Using Pembrolizumab with PSMA Based Radioligands

(UroToday.com) The 2024 Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) annual meeting held in Toronto, ON between June 8 and June 11 was host to the session Novel Approaches and Combination Therapies; Pre-Targeting Approaches. Dr. Thomas Hope discussed the combination treatment of prostate cancer using Pembrolizumab with PSMA-based radioligands.

AMA 2024: Championing Change: The AMA's Vital Advocacy Initiatives for Physicians

(UroToday.com) During the annual meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA), the pivotal advocacy priorities for the organization were reviewed by AMA leadership. The organization declares themselves at the forefront of advocating for the medical community, focusing on initiatives to improve healthcare delivery, alleviate physician burnout, and address systemic issues impacting both physicians and patients. This article provides an overview of the AMA's key advocacy efforts and their recent accomplishments.