Medical Team Seeks Prostate Cancer Imaging Breakthroughs

NEW ORLEANS, June 24 -- Cytogen Corp., Siemens Medical Solutions and University Hospitals of Cleveland have announced a partnership to promote breakthroughs in prostate cancer imaging. The announcement was made at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, being held this week in New Orleans.

"We're attempting to identify prostate cancer earlier and locate it more accurately, which will result in improved long-term prognosis for patients," said Bruce Sodee, M.D., professor of radiology at Case Western Reserve University, of Cleveland, Ohio, and a specialist in nuclear medicine at University Hospitals of Cleveland.

Through this partnership, physicians at the University Hospitals of Cleveland are using the Siemens e.cam gamma camera with Flash 3D iterative reconstruction and CT attenuation correction technology, in combination with the monoclonal antibody agent ProstaScint from Cytogen. The resulting images are providing major improvements for the diagnosis and staging of metastatic prostate cancer, according to Sodee.

GE Medical Systems also announced that it has formed an alliance with Cytogen Corp. to market a total molecular imaging system to help evaluate the extent and spread of prostate cancer by integrating GE Medical's Infinia Hawkeye imaging system with Cytogen's ProstaScint imaging agent.
In their research at the University Hospitals of Cleveland, Sodee and his team are imaging the prostate prior to surgery, then confirming their diagnosis by examination of the specimen after the procedure. He reports an average accuracy of approximately 90 percent in the identification of the tumor location through the imaging procedure.

For more information, visit: www.uhhs.com