To compare prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT) and computed tomography (CT) alone for the detection of biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer (PCa) and effect on treatment.
This retrospective study included 59 patients with recently recorded biochemical recurrence of PCa (mean PSA 1.96 ± 1.64 ng/mL) after radical prostatectomy. Patients received PET/CT with either Ga-PSMA-11 (n = 36) or F-PSMA-1007 (n = 23). PET/CT and CT images were evaluated separately in regard to PCa lesion count, type, and localisation by two physicians. Histopathology, follow-up imaging and PSA levels after salvage irradiation served as reference standard. A McNemar test was used to compare detection rates. Changes in therapeutic approaches based on staging differences between CT alone and PET/CT were assessed in a virtual multidisciplinary tumour board.
There were 142 lesions in 50 of 59 patients. PSMA PET/CT detected 141 lesions (99.3 %) in 50 patients (84.7 %), while CT detected 72 lesions (50.7 %) in 29 patients (49.2 %). A significantly higher detection rate of PSMA PET/CT was observed on a lesion-based analysis (p < 0.0001) and on a patient based analysis (p < 0.0001). Herein, both Ga- and F-PSMA PET/CT performed significantly better than CT alone (p < 0.0001, respectively). In 9 patients (15.3 %) no relapse was detectable by either modality. All lesions detected by CT were also detected by PSMA PET/CT. In 38 patients PSMA PET/CT detected more lesions than CT alone, altering the treatment approach in 22 of these patients.
PSMA PET/CT is superior to CT alone in detecting biochemical recurrence in PCa patients after radical prostatectomy and offered additional therapeutic options in a substantial number of patients.

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