Frontiers in Oncology Publishes New Meta-Analysis on the Diagnostic Value of Micro-Ultrasound

Jennifer Schram Portfolio News, Exact Imaging

Exact imaging for targeted biopsies

Published in December 2019, Frontiers in Oncology, one of the world’s top peer-reviewed oncology journals in terms of influence and quality, published a new meta-analysis on the diagnostic value of micro-ultrasound in prostate cancer.

Key findings show that micro-ultrasound is a more convenient and cost-effective method in real-time imaging during biopsy procedure in detecting clinically significant prostate cancer. Although micro-ultrasound has shown promising results, more clinical data and comprehensive analysis are still needed.

A total of 7 studies containing 769 patients were included in this meta-analysis. Micro-ultrasound had a pooled sensitivity, specificity, DOR and an area under the SROC of 0.91, 0.49, 10 and 0.82 respectively. Based on these findings, micro-ultrasound has the superior ability to diagnose clinically significant prostate cancer.

Read the study and article in full.

About Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is a frequently diagnosed malignant solid tumor in men. It is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. In 2019, 174, 650 new prostate cancer incidences were diagnosed and 31,620 deaths were attributed to this disease in the United States. Prostate cancer has now become the third most common type of cancer in China and the morbidity and mortality of this disease have steadily increased.

Diagnosing Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer screening methods include the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test and digital rectal examination (DRE), in addition to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques. However, the conventional ultrasound-based rectal systemic biopsy is insufficient, even with a repeated biopsy every 6-24 months, pathological findings suggest significant differences.

The ExactVu™ micro-ultrasound is a novel high-resolution 29-MHz ultrasound that offers real-time biopsies targeted to suspicious areas and enables the details visualization of related prostate tissue characteristics, with 3x greater resolution as compared with conventional ultrasound resolution. Furthermore, the targeting and entire workflow are controlled by the urologist. Micro-ultrasound also has a PRI-MUS (prostate risk identification using micro-ultrasound), which is a protocol for users to easily learn and quickly apply to help guide targeted biopsies to suspicious regions.

People with suspected prostate cancer, usually need a prostate biopsy first, which can result in morbidities, such as bleeding, infection, and rectal and bladder injury. Increasing the positive rate of suspected prostate lesions can significantly reduce unnecessary biopsies and complications. Previous studies demonstrated that MRI has high sensitivity and specificity, and while it is a usual method, it is not recommended as an alternative for system biopsy at present. Micro-ultrasound’s high sensitivity makes it an attractive option for guiding targeted biopsy.

About Exact Imaging

Exact Imaging is the world’s leader in high-resolution micro-ultrasound systems enabling real-time imaging and guided biopsies in the urological market for prostate cancer. Exact Imaging’s ExactVu™ micro-ultrasound platform operates at 29 MHz and enables a whole new level of resolution with the benefits of ease of use, affordability, and is an extension of the current urological workflow. Using the Exact Imaging platform, urologists are able to visualize areas of interest in the prostate and specifically target biopsies in those areas. For those cases where MRI might assist, the FusionVu™ micro-US/MRI fusion application operates on the ExactVu™ micro-ultrasound platform and facilitates fast, simple MRI fusion-based targeting with the guidance of the micro-ultrasound system’s 70-micron real-time resolution. The ExactVu™ micro-ultrasound system including the FusionVu™ application has received regulatory approval in the European Union (CE Mark), the United States (FDA 510(k)), and Canada (Health Canada medical device license).