PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Schachoff, Sylvia AU - Maurer, Tobias AU - Nekolla, Stephan AU - Schwaiger, Markus AU - Weber, Wolfgang AU - Eiber, Matthias TI - <strong>Ga<sup>68</sup>PSMA PET/MRI a revolution to detect primary prostate cancer</strong> DP - 2018 May 01 TA - Journal of Nuclear Medicine PG - 2101--2101 VI - 59 IP - supplement 1 4099 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/59/supplement_1/2101.short 4100 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/59/supplement_1/2101.full SO - J Nucl Med2018 May 01; 59 AB - 2101Aim: Define a PET/MR study protocol using Ga68-PSMA for patients with elevated PSA value and negative prostate biopsies but high suspicion of tumor.Methods: For patients with suspected primary prostate cancer, Ga68-PSMA-PET MRI is a novel and promising imaging technique. Ga68-PSMA is a new PET tracer that targets the active center of the extracellular domain of PSMA - a protein with high expression in prostate cancer but low anywhere else in the body. In our clinical routine 45 % of Ga68-PSMA PET/MR examinations are for primary prostate cancer with half of them in patient with increased PSA and prior negative prostate biopsies. Our PET/MRI protocol combines the advantages of molecular information from PET with a state of the art multi-parametric MRI of the prostate (T2w 3D, diffusion, dynamic contrast-enhanced sequence). The examination takes about 35 minutes and requires an optimal preparation of the patients (e.g. MRI contraindications, laboratory values such as PSA and creatinine).Results: Ga68-PSMA PET imaging allows direct visualization of PSMA-avid tumor lesions independent of metabolism - thus regenerative and inflammatory change have hardly any influence). The soft-tissue contrast of MRI-sequences and their anatomical resolution in combination with the PET-signal, clearly help to diagnose prostate cancers, especially in the transition zone which is difficult for MRI alone. The information of our Ga68-PSMA PET/MR dataset is used in by local urologists to perform PET-MRI-Ultrasound-Fusion guided biopsies. This helps to increase cancer detection rate in a difficult patient population. Summary: Ga68-PSMA PET/MR is a novel method to detect prostate cancer in men with prior negative biopsies but persistently elevated PSA-values. Combining PET with MRI using PET/MRI rather than PET/CT allows integral assessment of functional and molecular information and provide soft-tissue contrast to enable imaging guided biopsy. Based on our experience additional investigations are necessary to define the exact value of this promising approach. Interesting innovation arise from the application of fluorinated PSMA-ligands yielding F18-specific advantages compared to Ga68 (e.g. longer Half-life, lower positron range, higher production of activity). &lt;!--EndFragment--&gt;