A study using a quick scan to spot prostate cancer early (ReIMAGINE Prostate Cancer Screening)

Cancer type:

Prostate cancer

Status:

Results

Phase:

Pilot

This study looked at using an MRI scan to check for abnormal areas in the prostate that might be cancer.

It was for men who:

had not been diagnosed with prostate cancer
were between 50 and 75 years old

This study was supported by Cancer Research UK. It was open for people to join between 2019 and 2021. The team published the results in 2023.

More about this trial

When this study was done, people with suspected prostate cancer often had an MRI scan. A standard MRI scan takes about 40 minutes. And people have an injection of contrast dye to show up the prostate gland more clearly.

Doctors use the MRI results to decide if they need to take tissue samples (biopsies) from the prostate. And where to take the samples from.

In this study, they wanted to see if it’s worth checking men for prostate cancer, even if they don’t have symptoms. This is called screening. To do this, they used a quick MRI scan that took 10 minutes. It is a simpler version of the standard scan and people didn’t need to have an injection.

The main aims of this study were to find out:

if men were willing to join
how acceptable they found the scan
how well the MRI scan picked up possible signs of prostate cancer

Summary of results

This study showed that the shorter MRI scan could be a useful test to screen people for prostate cancer in the future.

Results
GP practices sent out invitations to 2,096 men in the London area:

457 men (22%) responded
303 men were able to have both the shorter MRI scan and a PSA test

The team found that the response was much lower from black men compared to white men. The response was also higher from older men.

The results showed that:

48 men (16%) had signs of possible prostate cancer on their MRI scan
16 men (5%) had a raised PSA level

These 64 men were referred for more tests. The tests showed that:

29 men had prostate cancer that was unlikely to grow or cause problems, so didn’t need treatment
3 men had prostate cancer that was more likely to grow and cause problems and may need treatment

Conclusion
The study team concluded that the shorter MRI scan could be a useful screening test for prostate cancer in the future. But this was a small study in one area of the UK.

Researchers have used the results of this study to plan further trials.

More detailed information
There is more information about this research in the reference below.

Please note, the information we link to here is not in plain English. It has been written for healthcare professionals and researchers.

Prevalence of MRI lesions in men responding to a GP-led invitation for a prostate health check: a prospective cohort study
C Moore and others
BMJ Oncology, 2023. Volume 2, issue 1, e000057.

Where this information comes from
We have based this summary on the information in the article above. This has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item ) and published in a medical journal. We have not analysed the data ourselves. As far as we are aware, the link we list above is active and the article is free and available to view.