The Cleveland Clinic on Wednesday named PSMA PET imaging No. 2 on its list of the top 10 medical innovations to watch in 2022.
Each year, the noted Ohio hospital system picks some of the biggest breakthroughs that will reshape healthcare in the year ahead. An expert panel of researchers and providers made the selections, led by D. Geoffrey Vince, PhD, executive director of innovations at the Clinic.
“Our experts always have their finger on the pulse of new technologies slated to change the face of healthcare,” Vince said Feb. 16. “The Top 10 Medical Innovations program was launched to share their insight with the broader healthcare community, and year after year, our professionals continue to successfully predict device, technology, theme and therapy advances.”
Every year, more than 200,000 Americans are diagnosed with prostate cancer, making it the most common form of the disease among U.S. men. Imaging is crucial for locating tumors, staging the disease and detecting recurrences, but conventional methods using CT and MRI offer limited accuracy, the Clinic noted in an accompanying video.
Prostate specific membrane antigen, found in high levels on the surface of cancer cells, serves as a potential biomarker. And paired with PET scans using a radioactive tracer attached to these PSMA proteins—coupled with CT or MRI to visualize the cells—offers a breakthrough in addressing the disease. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first commercially available PSMA PET agent in 2021 following phase three trials showing substantially increased accuracy compared to conventional imaging.
“Experts say the PET tracer procedure will soon become the new standard of care for detecting prostate cancer metastases, leading to improved care for these patients,” Cleveland Clinic said in its video.
The “next generation of mRNA vaccinology” landed the No. 1 spot on the list. Such “landscape-changing” technology allowed for the rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine in less than one year. And it has the potential to help providers manage some of healthcare’s “most challenging diseases quickly and efficiently.”
This is the first radiology-related item to make Cleveland Clinic’s list since 2019, when the system named “the advent of AI in healthcare” as its No. 2 innovation of the year.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.