Prostate cancer imaging: Positron-emission tomography perspectives

There is a pressing demand for more accurate characterization of prostate cancer to provide risk-adapted patient-specific therapy, especially with the recent development of a growing repertoire of treatment options. This trend toward more personalized care has resulted in a need for improved prostate-specific imaging in order to provide image-guided therapy and facilitate treatment monitoring. In addition to these clinical needs, there is a growing vision and challenge for new molecular imaging techniques not only to detect tumors but also provide important information regarding tumor biology and prognosis. This review presents a perspective on prostate cancer imaging, summarizing current conventional imaging approaches with a focus on emerging and future positron emission tomography-based radiotracers at different clinical and preclinical stages of development.