It's also used to follow up on suspicious bone scans...

MRI, Can it be used if Pacemaker has been removed BUT leads are still in
heart???? Howie

It's also a "silent" cancer. Usually no symptoms until too late for
surgery.
There's no reliable blood test and it's usually diagnosed late when a
person has lost a lot of weight.
They can't be MRI'ing everyone, in the world, every 3 months. That's
just not possible.
Good luck with your knee, curtis,
J
======
hi j - i agree with your logic.  but i forgot to add in my post when i
wrote it that the news article said they were only doing the risk cases
for pancreatic cancer.  

also, i forgot to mention that only the MRI's built in the last 5 years
has this capability, which greatly reduces the places that can do this
type of screening.

~ curtis

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional    
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

The clinical trial I was in was for the purpose of testing
endorectal MRI as an imaging system for guiding HDR
brachytherapy.  They did a dry run (MRI, no radiation) to
image everything and the doctor and computer guy showed me
the images they got.  I was amazed at the clarity of the
images, and also disturbed at the size and position of the
tumor that showed up.  It was big and right against the wall
of the prostate capsule, maybe penetrating slightly beyond it.
I could see orders of magnitude more detail than anything
that showed up on the ultrasound test my uro had done at the
biopsy.

They also imaged the lymph nodes and seminal vesicles, but
nothing showed up.  They told me anything bigger than 2mm would
show and couldn't guarantee that there weren't smaller tumors
in there, but at least the outcome there was hopeful.

For the actual treatments, they did the MRI again, in real-time,
mapping out the prostate, inserting treatment catheters (plastic
sleeves through which the radioactive isotope would be inserted)
then imaging some more, inserting more, etc.  Then they finally
put me in a room with a robot that administered the radiation.
Or at least that's what they tell me, I slept through the whole
thing.

We don't know yet how the trial will turn out.  Last I heard,
one guy out of 14 had opted for ADT, but the rest of us are
still hoping for success.  The guy who opted for ADT might or
might not have failed treatment since it seems that many of
the patients are getting big PSA "bounces" (seems to be a problem
with HDR brachytherapy).

Unfortunately, as with so many clinical trials, 14 is not a
big number and doesn't allow anyone to draw clear conclusions
about the efficacy of the treatment, but the NCI was unable
to recruit any more patients for the trial.

So we have some evidence that MRI guided radiation is good, but
not enough to know whether it's an advance on other techniques.

   Alan