MIAMI VALLEY — Kettering Health Main Campus is among the first in Dayton to use the newly FDA-approved Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) tracers.
The tracers are radioactive drugs used for PET and CT imaging to detect prostate cancer cells, which help show specifically where cancer is in the body.
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The PSMA binds to prostate cancer cells and highlights the cancer cells on a scan to show exactly where the cancer is located. Kettering Health says the PSMA is more accurate than traditional imaging.
Dr. Arif Sheikh, nuclear medicine specialist, said Kettering Health was “honored” to be one of the first medical centers in the region to offer the tracers.
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“By having these tracers, we’re able to detect prostate cancer early, detect whether or not the cancer has spread to other parts of the body and have advanced guidance for providers to select the more appropriate therapy earlier,” Sheikh said.
Currently, the PSMA-targeted PET scans are only approved for patients who have high-risk disease or a suspected recurrence based on elevated levels of prostate-specific antigen level.
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