Dr. Turkbey on Sodium Fluoride PET Imaging for Prostate Cancer

Ismail Baris Turkbey, MD, staff clinician in the Molecular Imaging Program, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, discusses sodium fluoride PET imaging for patients with prostate cancer.

Though sodium fluoride PET imaging has been in use for more than one decade, Turkbey says it remains to be a method for increased lanosterol turnover in localized metastatic disease. It is a helpful tracer that displays many pathologies; however, it is not cancer-specific.

Oncologists work to overcome this challenge by using diagnostic CT or MRI scans. Although several studies have shown the superiority of sodium fluoride PET scans over bone scans, it is not an accurate reflection of patients' response to therapy.