Trial Information

Clinical Management Decisions Based on [11C]Acetate Positron Emission Tomography Performed on Prostate Cancer Patients With Biochemical Recurrence

FDG-PET imaging uses a form of radioactive glucose (18-fluoro-deoxyglucose or FDG), which
allows the measurement of glucose metabolic rate of any tissue in the body. The most
prevalent tumors have a glucose avidity that is typically greater than 2.5 times the avidity
of benign tissue. Therefore, FDG-PET is able to discriminate between benign lymph nodes and
those containing metastases, and similarly between scar tissue and recurrence of tumor.

Unfortunately, prostate cancer is only minimally glucose avid, and therefore, FDG-PET is
much less effective in staging prostate cancer. The current FDA-approved imaging agent for
prostate cancer is a monoclonal antibody specific for prostate cancer cells, capromab
pendetide, labeled with a long-lived radionuclide [111]Indium that is used to image the
patient over a six day period. However, recent data show that another PET
radiopharmaceutical, [11C]Acetate (which has been FDA approved for years for cardiac
imaging), is avidly taken up by prostate metastasis and is more sensitive than either
[111]Indium capromab pendetide or FDG-PET.

This study will assess the clinical effectiveness of utilizing [11C]Acetate PET scans in
identifying recurrent prostate cancer and aim to find at what PSA levels it is most
effective.