A simple needle-stick may replace the scalpel for diagnosing men considered at risk for prostate cancer, Johns Hopkins doctors say.
They developed a blood test which monitors a blood protein recently identified at Johns Hopkins, early prostate cancer antigen-2. The test may change the way men are screened for prostate cancer ? a disease that kills tens of thousands each year.
“This is the first time we have a test that effectively distinguishes between men with cancer confined to the prostate and those whose disease has spread outside of the gland,” said Robert Getzenberg, professor of urology and director of research at the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Current screening standards could replace focus on a blood protein called prostate-specific antigen along with a digital rectal examination. Men with a PSA score higher than 2.5 are considered at risk, but the test often gives false positives, and misses other cases, Getzenberg said.
“A blood test based on EPCA-2 may greatly improve our ability to accurately detect prostate cancer early and minimize the number of false positives, therefore lowering the number of unnecessary biopsies,” he said.
About 1.6 million men undergo prostate biopsies in the United States each year, but only one in five gets a positive result for cancer, according to a study published by Getzenberg?s team in the April issue of the Urology journal.
Another 15 percent of prostate cancer cases go undetected because PSA levels are below the cutoff, Getzenberg said.
On the other hand, out of 330 Johns Hopkins patients, the new test gave false positives only 3 percent of the time. Doctors not involved in the testing referred patients with known conditions to the study.
The test also returned dramatically higher results in patients whose cancer spread outside the prostate, according to the study.
“This is important, since cancer that has spread outside the prostate is more deadly,” Getzenberg said.
