Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy and second leading cause of cancer death among American men. Better detection of prostate tumors is now possible through prostate specific antigen tests, but diagnosis continues to rely upon the evaluation of biopsy samples, with treatment regimes based upon histopathological grade and clinical stage. Most newly diagnosed patients, however, have moderately differentiated adenocarcinomas, are likely to have an indolent disease course, and could live with the disease. Such patients need close clinical monitoring, but not necessarily treatment. By contrast, some patients with moderately differentiated adenocarcinomas will experience a morbid disease course and die if not promptly treated with radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy, and/or novel protocols. At present, no means for evaluating the likely biological behavior of individual prostate tumors exists, a matter made crucial because aggressive local treatment is itself complicated by morbidity and compromised quality of life. A method able to evaluate a tumor's likely potential for aggressiveness would provide an important new tool for the clinical management of prostate cancer. To facilitate this ultimate objective, the applicants here propose to test the feasibility of a recently developed spectroscopic method for identifying cellular metabolic abnormalities that can serve as diagnostic markers. This proposal seeks to quantify cellular metabolic changes associated with the development of human prostate cancer by using high-resolution magic angle spinning (HRMAS) proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1HMRS). The capability of HRMAS 1HMRS to measure cellular metabolic changes in intact human tissue specimens, while preserving histopathological structures, has been demonstrated. Here, study objectives are to test the feasibility of quantifying prostate tumor cellular metabolites by using this methodology, to correlate the metabolic concentrations thus obtained with histopathological features measured in the same intact tissues, to identify and characterize metabolic markers, and to establish preliminary biochemical databases that may serve as an adjunct to histopathology for use in the grading and staging of prostate tumors. Tissue metabolites of newly acquired biopsy and surgical specimens, as well as stored frozen tissues, will be quantified with HRMAS 1HMRS. Observed metabolic markers that correlate with histopathology will be used to create a prostate cancer metabolic database. He results of this study of tumor metabolic characteristics should yield information ultimately useful to improvements n the clinical management of prostate tumor patients.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Exploratory/Developmental Grants (R21)
Project #
1R21CA080901-01A1
Application #
6042585
Study Section
Diagnostic Radiology Study Section (RNM)
Program Officer
Tricoli, James
Project Start
2000-01-12
Project End
2001-12-31
Budget Start
2000-01-12
Budget End
2000-12-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2000
Total Cost
$117,900
Indirect Cost
Name
Massachusetts General Hospital
Department
Type
DUNS #
073130411
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02199
Burns, Melissa A; Taylor, Jennifer L; Wu, Chin-Lee et al. (2005) Reduction of spinning sidebands in proton NMR of human prostate tissue with slow high-resolution magic angle spinning. Magn Reson Med 54:34-42
Cheng, Leo L; Burns, Melissa A; Taylor, Jennifer L et al. (2005) Metabolic characterization of human prostate cancer with tissue magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Cancer Res 65:3030-4
Taylor, Jennifer L; Wu, Chin-Lee; Cory, David et al. (2003) High-resolution magic angle spinning proton NMR analysis of human prostate tissue with slow spinning rates. Magn Reson Med 50:627-32
Wu, Chin-Lee; Taylor, Jennifer L; He, Wenlei et al. (2003) Proton high-resolution magic angle spinning NMR analysis of fresh and previously frozen tissue of human prostate. Magn Reson Med 50:1307-11
Cheng, L L; Wu, C; Smith, M R et al. (2001) Non-destructive quantitation of spermine in human prostate tissue samples using HRMAS 1H NMR spectroscopy at 9.4 T. FEBS Lett 494:112-6