PITTSBURGH, March 11 Findings published in this month's issue of the Journal of Urology indicate that prostate cancer could be detected as many as five years earlier than it is currently being diagnosed by testing for a protein in tissue that indicates the presence of early disease. The researchers suggest that testing for the protein, EPCA, could serve as an adjunct to the current diagnostic approach to patients with elevated levels of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, who undergo repeat needle biopsies. PSA, a substance in the blood released by the prostate gland, is commonly used to check for signs of prostate cancer and other prostate problems.

"One of the problems with testing for levels of PSA as an indicator of prostate cancer is that PSA levels often fluctuate up and down, making it difficult to know for certain whether a man has prostate cancer without performing multiple biopsies over time," said Robert Getzenberg, Ph.D., senior author and professor of urology, pathology and pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "By testing for EPCA in men with high levels of PSA, we may be able to detect the presence of prostate cancer earlier, before it is discoverable by biopsy, saving patients the fear and stress of repeat procedures and enabling us to treat the disease sooner."

Dr. Getzenberg explained that EPCA is a marker protein that indicates the earliest changes that occur in cells during the development of cancer.

In the study, Dr. Getzenberg, also co-director of the Prostate and Urologic Cancer Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and colleagues developed antibodies against EPCA to detect its presence in tissue. They compared 27 non-diseased control tissue samples to 29 tissue samples from patients with prostate cancer who had initial negative biopsies. They found that the samples from the negative biopsies of those patients who were eventually diagnosed with prostate cancer expressed
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Contact: Clare Collins
CollCX@upmc.edu
412-647-3555
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
11-Mar-2004

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