Helios Krefeld: PSMA therapy offers additional treatment options for prostate cancer

The nuclear medicine department at Helios Hospital Krefeld offers the new targeted PSMA therapy for prostate cancer. Using radioactive substances, cancer cells can be reliably marked and irradiated at the same time - a combination of precise diagnostics and efficient therapy. Helios Hospital Krefeld is the first clinic on the left bank of the Lower Rhine to offer this new therapy method for patients with advanced prostate cancer.

PSMA - this is a prostate-specific membrane antigen and therefore a component of prostate tissue. However, it occurs significantly more frequently on prostate cancer cells than on healthy prostate cells. Modern medicine is taking advantage of this fact in the new PSMA therapy: In the so-called Lu-177-PSMA procedure, radioactive substances are administered to the patient with infusions or injections, which bind to the PSMA and thus irradiate the cancer cells locally with the radionuclide lutetium177. As the so-called irradiation only reaches a few millimetres, the radiation is delivered to the tumor tissue in high doses and efficiently, while the surrounding healthy tissue is largely spared. Side effects are minimal and the therapy is generally very well tolerated.

Before and during treatment, additional images are taken using PET-CT. Here too, the principle of a radioactive substance that binds to the PSMA is used to reliably mark the cancer cells. This enables an exact representation of the prostate cancer including its metastases and thus a well-founded assessment of the success of the therapy.

Therapy with Lutetium-177 is carried out in the form of infusions or injections over several cycles, each six to eight weeks apart. One cycle is associated with an inpatient stay of around two days. The results show that very good effects can be achieved after just two to three treatment cycles. Further tumor growth can be prevented or a reduction in the tumor burden can be achieved. The latest studies have even documented the complete disappearance of tumors in individual patients.

Particularly in patients who have already developed bone metastases, lymph node metastases or a local recurrence in the prostate, a significant reduction in these tumor foci is often visible. Another positive effect of the therapy is the reduction in pain, which occurs in many cases and leads to an improved quality of life. The new procedure is approved for patients with advanced-stage prostate cancer.

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