Prostate cancer: nuclear medicine imaging in the biochemical recurrence and in oligometastatic disease.

Abstract

Introduction: The aim of this article was to offer a comprehensive non-systematic review of the literature about the use of Nuclear Medicine imaging exams for the evaluation of prostate cancer (PCa) in the recurrent setting, with a particular regard to positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) imaging.

Evidence acquisition: A comprehensive nonsystematic literature review was performed in March 2024. Literature search was updated until March 2024. The most relevant studies have been summarized, giving priority to registered clinical trials and multicenter collaborations.

Evidence synthesis: Restaging BCR with advanced Nuclear Medicine Imaging, such as prostate-specific membrane antigen-PET/CT could lead to stage migration and pave the way for additional management strategies, such as stereotactic ablative radiotherapy in patients with low-burden or oligometastatic disease, potentially delaying the need of systemic therapies. While OS benefits of targeting PET/CT positive disease are still lacking, data on progression- and metastasis-free-survival are emerging. Improvements in quality-of-life assessments are already evident.

Conclusions: PCa is one of the most common malignancy in men. In the last 10 years PCa imaging has become significantly more accurate and is now essential for the definition of the extent of the disease in different phases of its natural history. This opened the road to novel management strategies, especially in the recurrent setting, in which the oligometastatic state is now being explored in several trials regarding the prognostic significance of metastasis directed therapies aimed at personalizing the treatment for every single patient.