Dr. Helfand highlights SPOTLIGHT study results on 18F-rhPSMA-7.3 in prostate cancer

In this video, Brian Helfand, MD, PhD, highlights findings from the study, “18F-rhPSMA-7.3 Detection Rates in Patients with Recurrence of Prostate Cancer Following Primary Treatment with Radiation Therapy: Results from the SPOTLIGHT Study,” which was presented at the 2023 American Urological Association Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. Helfand is a urologic oncologist at NorthShore University Health System in Chicago, Illinois.

Video Transcript:

Specifically in this study, there was a high detection rate. Among the 76 men–who had an average age of about 70 and a PSA value of 4.4–up to 99% of them were able to find recurrent cancers. Within that, and I'm probably now getting the numbers wrong here, but most of these recurrences were localized to the prostate. Of patients who had positive scans, I believe it was 42% of them, had findings of disease that were outside of the pelvis, where the prostate is, and 25% of them had pelvic lymph node metastases.

So what's exciting about this is that this scan was able to detect really distant disease, which I think is always a surprise to urologists who are treating patients who said, 'well, the cancer should really be in the pelvis'. So this highlighted that this scan gave us a clue to disease that it was elsewhere in the body. Again, that's going to ultimately influence and or affect our treatment algorithms. Additionally, when we looked at predictors for men who had that extra pelvic disease, that if men had initially higher grade cancer and shorter PSA doubling times, they were more likely to have disease outside the pelvis. So, it's one of those where there are some clinical clues that we should be looking for. But certainly compared to historic imaging modalities, this PSMA scan highlighted its utility among men who were treated with radiation and had prostate cancer recurrence.

This transcription was edited for clarity.