BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Imaging Prostate Cancer Metastasis

July 24, 2008 7:00 AM UTC

Determining the status of lymph node metastasis in prostate cancer is important for deciding treatment options, but current techniques for detecting metastasis are imprecise and invasive. A paper published in Nature Medicine describes a noninvasive imaging method that uses recombinant human adenoviral vectors to directly detect sentinel lymph node metastasis.

Sentinel lymph nodes are typically the first draining lymph nodes to which cancer cells metastasize. Importantly, the adenoviral vectors have an innate affinity for the lymphatic system. However, applying the technique to humans may be challenging because it could be difficult to control where the vector goes once it is injected into the body...