Combined bone scintigraphy and fluorocholine PET/computed tomography predicts response to radium-223 therapy in patients with prostate cancer

Aim: To assess the value of bone scintigraphy and 18F-fluorocholine PET/computed tomography (CT) in predicting outcome in patients with prostate cancer and bone metastases treated with 223radium. Materials & methods: Retrospective analysis of 48 patients that underwent 223radium therapy. End points were pain relief and overall survival. Results: After therapy, pain relief was observed in 27 patients. Patients without pain relief had more bone lesions at PET/CT than at bone scintigraphy (pretherapy imaging mismatch). In 39 patients who completed treatment protocol, post-therapy alkaline phosphatase and pretherapy imaging mismatch were independent predictors of poor overall survival. Conclusion: Patients with more lesions at 18F-fluorocholine PET/CT than at bone scintigraphy had a poor prognosis. The combined imaging approach could be useful to predict outcome after 223radium therapy.

Edgar Haydon (1859–1942): General practitioner and radium pioneer

Summary Edgar Haydon was a general practitioner in Newton Abbot, Devon, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He introduced radium therapy to the cottage hospital in this small market town in 1914 at a time when many cities lacked this facility. He raised funds for the building of a cancer wing and an extension to the hospital that were completed in 1927. This paper describes his fund-raising efforts, some of his cases and the way in which radium treatment influenced the number of cancers treated in the hospital. The hospital's records are fragmentary and leave many questions unanswered about the practicalities of radium treatment in those early years.