Scientists to test MRI exams for prostate cancer in the UK

British scientists have announced a clinical trial to determine whether magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exams would allow routine screening for prostate cancer.

This decision comes after the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recently updated its guidelines to include the 10-minute badysis as an effective approach to diagnosing cancer. Prostate cancer.

Dubbed ReIMAGINE, the new trial will evaluate the use of MRI scans in population screening for the accurate detection of prostate cancer, responsible for nearly 11,800 deaths a year in the UK.

The existing prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test is considered unreliable for routine screening. About three in four men with increased PSA will not have cancer and the test could also miss more than one in ten cancer, the BBC added.

In addition to the ability of the medical imaging technique to detect cancer at an early stage, ReIMAGINE will study its use in conjunction with other technologies such as genomics and machine learning to predict the disease. Evolution of cancer.

The purpose of the study is to determine whether MRI scans could offer a better alternative to prostate biopsies.

In total, 1,000 men with moderate to high risk cancers will be included in the study. In addition, the test will be provided to 300 men between the ages of 60 and 75 in the community.

Mark Emberton, a professor at University College London, said, "We are going to test whether MRI can be used for screening men and hopefully we can detect earlier serious cancers that we are missing.

"The MRI examination of prostate cancer could also help a quarter of a million men, or even half a million men a year, avoid unnecessary biopsy if MRI was negative.

"The majority of men will be rebadured that they do not have prostate cancer and, importantly, they may be able to avoid the harms of a biopsy, not to mention that health systems will be able to avoid it. the costs. MRI is the ideal tool because it is relatively inexpensive, widely available and reliable. "

Emberton is part of the academic consortium responsible for the ReIMAGINE project.