Prostate Cancer can Now be Accurately Diagnosed With New Blood Test

Screening prostate cancer becomes easier with the help of a new blood test known as Prostate Screening EpiSwitch (PSE). Hence, timely diagnosis and treatment can save lives.//

Researchers at the University of East Anglia have helped develop a new blood test to detect prostate cancer with greater accuracy than current methods.

Prostate Specific Antigen [PSA] & Prostate Cancer Diagnosis
PSA blood test is specific to prostate gland but not necessarily a cancer specific test but is commonly used to diagnose prostate cancer.

‘New blood test (Prostate Screening EpiSwitch) can detect prostate cancer with 94 percent accuracy.’
Read More..

Tweet it Now

New research shows that the Prostate Screening EpiSwitch (PSE) blood test is 94 percent accurate, beating the currently used prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test.

Best Screening Method for Prostate Cancer

The research team says that the new test shows significant potential as an accurate and rapid cancer screening diagnostic.

The test was developed by Oxford Biodynamics in collaboration with UEA, Imperial College London and Imperial College NHS Trust.

Prof. Dmitry Pshezhetskiy, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and kills one man every 45 minutes in the UK.”

Brachytherapy for Prostate Cancer - Doses, Side Effects, Precautions
Learn about two different types of brachytherapy used for treating prostate cancer. Get information on the latest advances in the field.

“There is currently no single test for prostate cancer, but PSA blood tests are among the most used, alongside physical examinations, MRI scans, and biopsies.”

“However, PSA blood tests are not routinely used to screen for prostate cancer, as results can be unreliable.”

Quiz on Prostate Cancer
Prostate cancer is fast gaining as a common cancer form among men; more threatening since its symptoms often go unnoticed until it’s too late. This quiz tests your knowledge on prostate cancer, its diagnosis and treatment options and is as mandatory for men as the screening tests mentioned here are!

“Only about a quarter of people who have a prostate biopsy due to an elevated PSA level are found to have prostate cancer.”

“There has therefore been a drive to create a new blood test with greater accuracy.”

Medical Management of Prostate Cancer
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men after skin cancer and it is the sixth leading cause of death in men worldwide.

The UEA team evaluated the new PSE test, which combines the traditional PSA test with an epigenetic EpiSwitch test, in a pilot study involving 147 patients.

They compared its results with those of the standard PSA test and found that PSE significantly enhanced overall detection accuracy for at-risk men.

Is Prostate Screening EpiSwitch (PSE) Test Effective?

Prof. Pshezhetskiy said: "When tested in the context of screening a population at risk, the PSE test yields a rapid and minimally invasive prostate cancer diagnosis with impressive performance. This suggests a real benefit for both diagnostic and screening purposes."

Dr. Jon Burrows, Chief Executive Officer at Oxford Biodynamics, said: "There is a clear need in everyday clinical practice for a highly accurate blood test that can screen men for prostate cancer and accurately identify those at risk, while sparing those who up to now would be subject to unnecessary, expensive, and invasive procedures.

“This is another example of how our product portfolio can contribute to reducing the total cost of care for global health."

‘Circulating chromosome conformation signatures significantly enhance PSA positive predicting value and overall accuracy for prostate cancer detection’ is published in the journal Cancers.

Source-Eurekalert