Along with a number of other malignancies, the term "oligometastatic" prostate cancer has recently emerged. It represents an attempt to define a subtype of cancer with a limited metastatic load that might perform more favorably than a distinctly disseminated disease, or even one that may be managed in a potentially curative way. Since there is currently a knowledge gap of what imaging modalities should be utilized to classify patients as having this type of tumor, we aimed to shed light on the role of conventional and marker-based imaging in the setting of synchronous oligometastatic prostate cancer as well as summarize the available evidence for its clinical application.
A literature search on December 15th 2017 was conducted using the Pubmed database.
Functional imaging techniques like 68Ga PSMA. 68Ga PSMA PET-CT has currently been shown the best detection rates for the assessment of nodal, bone and visceral metastases, especially for smaller lesions at low PSA levels.
Functional imaging helps detect low-burden disease metastatic patients. However, these imaging modalities are not available in every center and thus clinicians may be prone to prescribe systemic treatment rather than referring patients for cytoreductive treatments. We hope that the ongoing prospective trials will help guide clinicians in making a more personalized management of synchronous metastatic patients.
World journal of urology. 2018 Aug 01 [Epub ahead of print]
Jurgen J Futterer, Cristian Surcel, Roderick van den Bergh, Hendrik Borgmann, Alberto Briganti, Giorgio Gandaglia, Alexander Kretschmer, Piet Ost, Prasanna Sooriakumaran, Derya Tilki, Massimo Valerio, Guillaume Ploussard, Pieter J L De Visschere, Igor Tsaur, EAU-YAU Prostate Cancer Working Party
Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Radboudumc, P.O. Box 9101, internal postal code 766, 6500 HB, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. ., Department of Urology, Fundeni Clinical Institute, Carol Davila University of Medicine, Bucharest, Romania., Department of Urology, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands., Department of Urology and Pediatric Urology, University Medicine Mainz, Mainz, Germany., Department of Urology, Urological Research Institute, Vita-Salute University and San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy., Department of Urology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Munich, Germany., Department of Radiation Oncology and Experimental Cancer Research, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium., Department of Uro-oncology, University College London Hospital, London, UK., Martini-Klinik Prostate Cancer Center, University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany., Department of Urology, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland., Department of Urology, Saint Jean Languedoc Hospital, Toulouse, France., Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium.