UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Altoona Now Offering Pluvicto for Metastatic Prostate Cancer

In April 2026, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Altoona, began using Pluvicto® to treat select patients with metastatic prostate cancer.

The expansion is part of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center’s broader efforts to extend advanced cancer therapies into community settings closer to where patients live. UPMC Hillman began using Pluvicto at UPMC Shadyside in 2022, shortly after its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

"These patients have widespread metastatic disease. Many have significant bone pain requiring opioids, and mobility limitations that often prevent them from driving themselves to appointments," says Ravi Patel, MD, PhD, assistant professor and director of radiopharmaceuticals, Department of Radiation Oncology, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. “Offering this advanced radiopharmaceutical therapy to patients closer to home will remove the need for travel every six weeks for the treatment, which for some individuals is a real barrier in accessing this therapy.”

What is Pluvicto, How Does it Work, and Who is Most Appropriate for the Therapy?

Pluvicto is a radioligand therapy given as an intravenous infusion every six weeks for up to six cycles that combines a small molecule targeting prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) with the radioisotope lutetium-177. PSMA is highly expressed on the surface of most prostate cancer cells but is found at much lower levels in other kinds of cells and tissues, making it a useful and highly targetable approach for metastatic prostate cancer. When administered, Pluvicto finds and binds to PSMA-expressing tumor cells and then delivers targeted beta-particle radiation directly to the cancer cells, limiting exposure and toxicity to surrounding healthy tissues.

Pluvicto is approved by the FDA for patients with PSMA-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who have received prior treatment with an androgen receptor pathway inhibitor (ARPI). The therapy is approved for use before and after chemotherapy, giving clinicians flexibility for patients who are not candidates for chemotherapy or who wish to defer it.

Patient eligibility for Pluvicto is confirmed through PSMA PET imaging, which identifies whether the patient's tumors express enough PSMA to be effectively targeted by the therapy.

"Pluvicto is an effective treatment for patients who have exhausted other options. For many of these patients, the alternative had been hospice or palliative chemotherapy, so having a therapy that has been shown to extend life and improve quality of life is significant," Dr. Patel says.

The Program at Altoona

While Pluvicto is the first radioligand therapy offered at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Altoona, the site is not new to radiopharmaceuticals. The Altoona team has extensive experience with iodine-131 and radium-223. This existing nuclear medicine experience and infrastructure, hot lab, PET imaging, and trained staff, allowed the program to come together quickly.

The one gap was physician credentialing for radioligand therapy administration. Dr. Patel, who is credentialed to administer Pluvicto at UPMC Shadyside, travels to Altoona once a month to treat patients, working in collaboration with the local nuclear medicine team, led by Josh Stoer. Because Pluvicto is dosed every six weeks per patient, a monthly cadence accommodates the program's growing cohort.

In July 2026, current resident, Mohammed Mohammed, MD, will join UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Altoona, and expand the program's onsite capacity.

A Seamless Experience for Referring Physicians

The Pluvicto program at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center is built around minimizing the administrative and clinical management burden that radiopharmaceutical therapy typically places on the referring physician.

"Historically, when these patients are referred for nuclear medicine therapy, the referring physician ends up doing all the authorizations, navigating the process with insurance providers for approvals, ordering and monitoring the labs, and dealing with the toxicities," Dr. Patel says. “We remove that friction for referring clinicians and our patients.”

At UPMC Hillman, a dedicated financial counselor in radiation oncology handles insurance authorizations, which can be complex for radiopharmaceutical therapies. An advanced practice provider tracks labs between cycles, coordinates blood transfusions and platelet support when indicated, communicates with the patient's medical oncology team on supportive care, prescribes antiemetics, and serves as the patient's primary point of contact between visits.

Personalized Pluvicto Treatment with SPECT/CT

Because Pluvicto delivers radiation directly to specific cancer cells, the same property that makes it therapeutic also makes it visible and traceable. After each treatment cycle, SPECT/CT imaging can show where the drug has accumulated in the body and quantify how much radiation dose reached the tumor(s) versus surrounding tissues or organs. At UPMC Shadyside, Dr. Patel and the team uses that information to individualize each patient's Pluvicto course rather than treating every patient with the exact same six-cycle regimen.

SPECT/CT imaging after each Pluvicto cycle shows where the drug has gone in the body and how much radiation dose reaches the tumor compared to off-target tissues and organs. That data lets Dr. Patel and the team decide, in real time and patient by patient, whether the next scheduled cycle should proceed as planned, be paused, or be replaced with a different therapy altogether.

When scans show that a patient's tumor is taking up progressively less drug as PSA falls, the team can pause treatment rather than continue cycling, which spares the patient unnecessary radiation exposure. When scans show poor tumor uptake alongside rising PSA, the team can move the patient to chemotherapy or another systemic therapy sooner than a fixed treatment schedule would allow.

When scans show some lesions responding and others growing, focused external beam radiation can be added to the nonresponding sites while Pluvicto therapy continues. Each care decision is based on what the imaging shows for that specific patient at that specific point in their treatment. This level of personalization is currently available at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Shadyside, with plans underway to bring SPECT/CT capability to UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Altoona, in the near future.

"Every patient responds differently to Pluvicto. SPECT/CT lets us see, in each patient, whether the drug is reaching the tumor in sufficient quantity and how the tumor is responding. That information lets us tailor the treatment to the patient," Dr. Patel says.

Patient Referrals and Additional Information

To refer a patient for consultation or to discuss a case, call 814-889-2400. For additional information about UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Altoona, or radiopharmaceutical therapy at UPMC, visit UPMCHillman.com.