Four-Timepoint Multi-tracer PET Imaging to Characterize Metastatic prOstate Cancer Heterogeneity

Imaging modalities currently used in the clinics do not image cancer, but the effect ofncancer on bone (bone scan) or on the anatomy (CT-scan). Bone scan and CT-scan are therefore named conventional imaging (CI) modalities. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is an imaging technique that uses tracers to measure cancer activity in each lesion and is therefore quantitative. Usually, treatment changes in metastatic prostate cancers are based on the appearance of new lesions on CI, named metastases. Prostate cancer metastases have been shown to be clonal, which means that there are several cancers within each patient, potentially with divergent behaviors under therapy. In other words, some metastases might be resistant to a systemic therapy like chemotherapy, while others might be sensitive. The study proposes here to use molecular imaging by positron emission tomography to image and quantify the activity of prostate cancer cells in each metastasis before start, after 3 months and after progression during systemic therapy.

Each metastasis will then be measured to assess whether there is an increase (resistance) or a decrease (response) in prostate cancer cell activity. The analysis will determine how many metastases progress or remain stable when new metastases appear on conventional imaging (polyclonal resistance), as well as the impact of a change in therapy on metastases that were previously stable when cancer progressed elsewhere. In addition, the genes expressed in responding and non-responding metastases will be analyzed to identify gene expression patterns associated with resistance and/or response. Overall, this study aims to characterize metastatic prostate cancer clonal resistance mechanisms using serial PET molecular imaging and imaging-guided genomics.