Conditions: Prostate Cancer
Keywords: Prostate cancer prostatic vascularity External Beam Radiation treatment Contrast Enhanced transrectal Ultrasound
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 1
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
Solid tumors, including prostate cancer, commonly exhibit tumor-associated neovascularity (growth of new blood vessels to feed the tumor) with increased microvessel density. Systemic, hormonal, and radiotherapy treatments typically decrease or suppress tumor - associated vascularity through several mechanisms, including apoptosis (process of cell death) and anti-angiogenic pathways (ways to destroy new blood vessel growth). Previously at the investigators' center, they have demonstrated that increased prostatic vascularity (blood vessels defined to prostate) detected ultrasonographically correlated with disease free survival after radical prostatectomy (surgical removal of entire prostate), and may be indicative of higher grade, higher stage disease. The significance of prostate neovascularity in response to treatment with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) (standard of care) has not been well studied. The investigators hypothesize that prostate cancer that recurs after radiotherapy may exhibit measurable patterns of tumor-associated vascularity, which may represent a minimally invasive marker of cancer stage, grade and response to treatment. The investigators propose a pilot study to assess the feasibility of serial enhanced transrectal ultrasonography (TRUS) examinations during and after radiotherapy for prostate cancer.

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: None

Interventions: intervention 1: Contrast Enhanced-Transrectal Ultrasound
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Drug Once a subject is identified TRUS schedule will be set up revolving around the EBRT treatment schedule. A schedule of 6 contrast enhanced TRUS examinations per subject is planned as follows: week 0 (prior to EBRT, baseline \[Visit 2\]); week 5 (middle of treatment \[Visit 3\]); week 10 (end of treatment \[Visit 4\]); week 18 (2 months after end of EBRT \[Visit 5\]); week 26 (4 months after end of EBRT \[Visit 6\]); and week 36 (6 months after end of EBRT \[Visit 7\]).

Protocol document: