Although there is no prevention for prostate cancer, early detection and regular screening are the best approaches to reduce the number annual deaths. To this end, researchers at Desert Medical Imaging led by Dr. John F. Feller, Medical Director and owner of the company, recently conducted their 500th in-bore, MRI-guided prostate biopsy.
A diagnostic MRI creates a detailed cross-sectional image of the prostate gland without an invasive procedure. DMI’s Board Certified Radiologists can then examine the images using Computer Aided Detection to identify areas in the gland that look suspicious; these areas may be further evaluated through a targeted MR-guided biopsy.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), prostate cancer is the most common cancer among American men, and it is also one of the leading causes of cancer death among men of all races and Hispanic populations. In 2011, the CDC estimations showed that 209,292 men in the United States were diagnosed with prostate cancer and that 27,970 men died from the disease.
“The technology targets prostate lesions in order to better grade and stage prostate cancer and reduce pain, bleeding and risk of infection,” said Feller in a recent press release. “MRI-guided biopsies have proven to be more accurate than random, transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) biopsy, which has a documented false-negative rate of 30-35% for the detection of clinically significant prostate cancer.”
The Desert Medical Imaging prostate program was initiated in 2009, and has served about 1,100 men. The company was also involved in a partnership for five years to develop the image-guidance system to perform prostate minimal invasive intervention with the use of MRI guidance.
Desert Medical Imaging is a California based company. Dr. John Feller, owner and medical director of the company, opened the first imaging center in September 1998 and due to its success, three additional centers were opened during a 10 year period in Indio, Palm Springs and Yucca Valley. All the centers are equipped with ultrasound services, spiral computed tomography (CT) imaging and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as the company intends to provide the highest quality patient care possible in an outpatient imaging center.