Lately, researchers have gotten much closer to being able to detect the earliest stages of prostate cancer. This disease is easily treatable when detected in its early stages. A groundbreaking study has introduced a simple urine test that may provide a more reliable and less invasive method for diagnosing prostate cancer, which has long been a challenge for the medical community.
Prostate cancer continues to be one of the most common and fatal clinical challenges due to the absence of specific and accurate biomarkers for early diagnosis. For almost half a century, the only reliable biomarker that was available was serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Its limitations have led researchers to search for other ways to do it. The new non-invasive urine test uses AI to focus on potential biomarkers, greatly increasing the chances for an early diagnosis.
The study, led by Martin Smelik, analyzed genes from thousands of individual tumor cells categorized by cancer grade and location. To identify and validate biomarkers, researchers used blood, prostate tissue, and urine samples from almost 2,000 patients. These findings indicate that urinary biomarkers have the potential to be more effective than PSA in detecting the aggressiveness of prostate cancer.
If proven, this finding would transform how we go about diagnosing prostate cancer. It promises the hope of a more objective, reproducible screening mechanism, which is sorely overdue. And all of this just through a urine test,” added Milan Sheth, an MD quadruple-board-certified physician and researcher who helped develop the technology.
With the urine test, most men can avoid an unnecessary biopsy. Unlike other studies, its focus is on people without prostate cancer. When mUC must be diagnosed today, current diagnostic methods require painful, invasive procedures only available by urologists. The new test presents a more convenient, non-invasive and relatively affordable option.
Impressively, the urinary biomarkers had fantastic diagnostic accuracy. Their results were able to differentiate cancer vs non-cancer states and reflect disease severity, Sheth continued.
Ramkishen Narayanan, a board-certified urologist, expressed optimism about the study’s implications: “With respect to prostate cancer, serum PSA has remained the only reliable ‘biomarker’ for nearly 50 years at this point. The field is long overdue for new, better biomarkers that both identify who needs to get a prostate biopsy and track the progression of prostate cancer.
These exciting new predictors might form the basis of a UK-wide personal genomics study into prostate cancer. Their adoption could accelerate national testing and implementation of innovation across our healthcare systems. Researchers are still improving this method. They hope to deploy their approach to other cancers in upcoming studies.
“The most important finding of this paper is that we are able to accurately detect prostate cancer,” remarked Martin Smelik. “It is accomplished through analysis of the expression of candidate biomarkers in urine.
Leave a Reply