One out of every eight men will get prostate cancer.

It’s the second most common type of cancer in men, and it’s a type of cancer researchers are working vigorously to get ahead of.

What You Need To Know

  • FDA approved a new drug to help doctors detect prostate cancer

  • Studies showed 92% accuracy, Moffitt radiologist says

  • Previous methods were 65% accurate

“The number of people we can actually help, it’s immense. It’s truly different. We haven’t had something like this for a long, long time,” said Dr. Kenneth Gage, a radiologist at Moffitt Cancer Center.

He reads scans of prostate cancer patients almost daily and helped recruit people for this latest trial that he calls revolutionary, especially for people who have more advanced disease.

“This is really going to help us clarify for a lot of patients the best way forward,” Dr. Gage told Spectrum News.

A prostate specific membrane antigen, also known as a PSMA — or by its commercial name, Pylarify — is injected into the patient.

The injection agent is designed to find its way to cancer cells in the prostate. Doctors can then use a PET scan of the prostate to detect precisely where the cancer cells are located.

“Until this time, we’ve kind of been limited in our tools to detect that. And we do the best we can, we have a lot of experience, a lot of evidence based over time, different mechanisms to do that — traditional imaging and statistics — but this takes it to a whole new level for the individual themselves,” Dr. Gage said.

He explained that the trial showed the PSMA revealed prostate cancer with 92% accuracy — a significant improvement over the 65% accuracy without it.

Dr. Gage said doctors can use this information to determine the best possible treatment plan

“All those treatments have differences in your quality of life, life expectancy, tolerability of treatment. So getting the right one is really important,” he said.

The Food & Drug Administration announced the approval of Pylarify on Thursday, stating that “certain men with prostate cancer will have greater access to PSMA-targeted PET imaging that can aid health care providers in assessing prostate cancer.” The FDA also said “it may spare certain patients from undergoing unnecessary surgery.”

Potential risks and side effects were also included.