Detecting Prostate Cancer Earlier

Reported September 2005

BALTIMORE (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Most men over age 50 are familiar with PSA testing, used to detect prostate cancer. But the test can sometimes miss cancer cases. Now a new test can find cancer earlier.

When James Foster discovered he had prostate cancer, his life barely missed a beat. Now a prostate cancer survivor, Foster says, "I don't think I was shocked. I truly was almost preparing for it." But finding out he had the disease wasn't easy or quick. Like many men his age, he experienced the problem of having elevated PSA test results that could mean any number of things.

Robert Getzenberg, Ph.D., a cancer biologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, says, "A blood test of PSA is not really an accurate marker of prostate cancer, but really a marker of abnormal prostate conditions."

Cancer biologists now have a new blood test, currently in clinical trials, that's more reliable and accurate at finding the disease in its earliest stages. The new test identifies a protein marker in blood plasma, called early prostate cancer antigen -- or EPCA. When the marker appears in a blood test, it indicates a high probability of cancer, not just that something is wrong. Doctors say it's the best indicator yet of prostate cancer.

"If you have the EPCA marker in your blood, you almost certainly, higher than 95-percent chance, have prostate cancer," Getzenberg says -- promising new number that might help reduce the amount of prostate biopsies, a painful, invasive procedure to confirm cancer, and focus on men who are truly at risk.

The new blood test is currently in clinical trials, and doctors will be recruiting new patients this fall. For trial information, visit http://www.tesserainc.com

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Department of Urology
Marburg 121
600 N. Wolfe Street
Baltimore, MD 21287-2101
(410) 502-3137



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