Metabolomic imaging for human prostate cancer detection

Sci Transl Med. 2010 Jan 27;2(16):16ra8. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3000513.

Abstract

As current radiological approaches cannot accurately localize prostate cancer in vivo, biopsies are conducted at random within prostates for patients at risk for prostate cancer, leading to high false-negative rates. Metabolomic imaging can map cancer-specific biomolecular profile values onto anatomical structures to direct biopsy. In this preliminary study, we evaluated five whole prostates removed during prostatectomy from biopsy-proven cancer patients on a 7-tesla human whole-body magnetic resonance scanner. Localized, multi-cross-sectional, multivoxel magnetic resonance spectra were used to construct a malignancy index based on prostate cancer metabolomic profiles obtained from previous intact tissue analyses with a 14-tesla spectrometer. This calculated malignancy index is linearly correlated with lesion size and demonstrates a 93 to 97% overall accuracy for detecting the presence of prostate cancer lesions, suggesting the potential clinical utility of this approach.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Diagnostic Imaging / methods*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Metabolomics / methods*
  • Middle Aged
  • Phantoms, Imaging
  • Principal Component Analysis
  • Prostate / metabolism
  • Prostate / pathology
  • Prostatic Neoplasms / diagnosis*
  • Prostatic Neoplasms / metabolism*