Correlations of 68Ga-PSMA PET/CT in the initial staging of prostate cancer patients

The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlations between the different risk groups of prostate cancer (PCa) regarding the presence of metastasis and the gallium-68 prostate specific membrane antigen (68Ga-PSMA) uptake patterns in the prostate gland.OBJECTIVEThe aim of this study was to evaluate the correlations between the different risk groups of prostate cancer (PCa) regarding the presence of metastasis and the gallium-68 prostate specific membrane antigen (68Ga-PSMA) uptake patterns in the prostate gland.One hundred thirty nine patients with newly diagnosed, untreated PCa who underwent 68Ga-PSMA PET/CT imaging for staging between July 2017 and March 2019 were enrolled in this retrospective study. Maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) were determined by manually placing the region of interest to the primary tumor in the prostate gland. Patients were divided into groups according to their prostate-specific antigen (PSA) values, International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP) grade groups, Gleason Scores (GS), D'Amico risk stratification criteria and the presence of metastasis. Mann Whitney U test was used in the comparison of two groups of data. In multivariate analysis, logistic regression was used to determine independent predictors for the presence of metastasis.MATERIALS AND METHODSOne hundred thirty nine patients with newly diagnosed, untreated PCa who underwent 68Ga-PSMA PET/CT imaging for staging between July 2017 and March 2019 were enrolled in this retrospective study. Maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) were determined by manually placing the region of interest to the primary tumor in the prostate gland. Patients were divided into groups according to their prostate-specific antigen (PSA) values, International Society of Urological Pathology (ISUP) grade groups, Gleason Scores (GS), D'Amico risk stratification criteria and the presence of metastasis. Mann Whitney U test was used in the comparison of two groups of data. In multivariate analysis, logistic regression was used to determine independent predictors for the presence of metastasis.There were statistically significant differences between D'Amico risk groups in terms of prostate SUVmax levels. The SUVmax levels of the patients in the high risk group were significantly higher than the SUVmax levels of the patients in the low-medium risk groups (P