Georgia Urology, the largest urology practice in the Southeast, played an important role in Northside Hospital’s becoming the first hospital in the United States to commercially use Axumin, a tool to detect recurrent prostate cancer, according to Dr. Vahan Kassabian, Georgia Urology’s medical director.

Dr. Kassabian said a “handful” of Georgia Urology’s physicians have used the technology, which has only been available commercially for about six weeks after it received approval from the FDA. Dr. Kassabian said he met with representatives from Blue Earth Diagnostics, the manufacturer of Axumin, which is how he first learned of its existence. Some of the tool’s medical research studies were performed at Emory University, he said.

Urologists use a test known as the Prostate-Specific Antigen, which measures the amount of a protein produced by the prostate gland, to detect prostate cancer. At times, the current tests — bone scans and CT scans — can have trouble detecting where the cancerous cells are when PSA is on the rise after definitive therapy, such as surgery or radiation. Axumin provides an important tool for finding where the cancerous cells are located.

“So far, it’s excellent,” Dr. Kassabian said of Axumin. “What I can tell is there was a big need for patients whose PSA is rising after prostate cancer treatments and we wouldn’t know where the cancer is with our current imaging. Technetium bone scans or regular CT scans are not very sensitive at picking up small areas of cancer that would otherwise be missed. This is a test that looks at where the PSA membrane may lie in the body and can therefore find cancer earlier and more precisely, which would translate into earlier and more accurate treatment.”

Georgia Urology recommends that patients check with their respective providers to make sure that Axumin is covered.