Looking ahead, Ritch identifies histopathologic confirmation and long-term clinical outcomes as important measures for evaluating differences between PSMA-PET imaging agents. He explains that higher detection rates would be more clinically meaningful if they corresponded with confirmed cancer findings. Additionally, demonstrating that earlier identification of recurrence or metastases leads to improvements in overall survival or prostate cancer–specific survival would help establish the clinical value of one imaging agent over another.
As Ritch explains, imaging performance alone does not necessarily establish clinical benefit: “If at the end of the day it doesn’t improve the patient’s oncologic outcome, then detecting these things earlier or finding these things may not necessarily be clinically meaningful.”
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REFERENCE
1. Nordquist LT, Andrews JR, Kuo PH, et al. An intra-patient contemporaneous comparison of 18F-piflufolastat and 18F-flotufolastat urinary radioactivity and pelvic region detection rates in men with low PSA biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer after radical prostatectomy. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2026;53(6):3529-3541. doi:10.1007/s00259-025-07732-y