Somatostatin imaging of neuroendocrine-differentiated prostate cancer.

ABSTRACT

After prolonged androgen deprivation therapy, a subset of castrate-resistant prostate cancer patients will develop neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC) associated with resistance to further hormonal therapy and frequent visceral metastases. Imaging the presence of somatostatin receptors on the cancer cell surface may provide a readily available, noninvasive means to distinguish adenocarcinoma from NEPC. This distinction is important for therapeutic decision making and may open the door for developing novel radionuclide targets for the treatment of this aggressive subtype of prostate cancer. We describe a case of NEPC successfully imaged using In-labeled octreotide.