Nuclear medicine techniques for the diagnosis and therapy of prostate carcinoma

Nuclear medicine techniques play an important role in (re)staging and treatment of prostate carcinoma patients. These techniques are reviewed in this paper. For many years, bone scanning has been a valuable tool for the evaluation of bone metastases. Although utilized in a more refined way since the introduction of serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) measurement, it is still the procedure of choice in patients with higher-grade or higher-stage tumors and elevated or rising PSA levels. Labeled monoclonal antibodies have been found to have some utility in the clinic for the evaluation of disseminated malignant prostate disease and position emission tomography holds promise for the metabolic characterization of prostate cancer. Several agents are available for radionuclide therapy for bone pain palliation in patients with metastasis, improving pain with minimal side effects or discomfort to the patient. Nuclear medicine techniques in prostate carcinoma are far from obsolete. On the contrary, they are evolving and offer unique opportunities for the management of these patients. The bone scan remains useful in well-defined stages of disease, and palliative therapeutic options are evolving. At present, monoclonal antibodies and PET are not very useful in daily clinical practice.